I believe that men are good.
I believe that men are intelligent. I believe that men are just. But I also believe, that each one has an angel behind that whispers.

Carlos Loarca, the Director of SomArts Gallery in San Francisco, asked me to write some statements about my art for the show, explaining what my art is about, what I represent, what is my philosophy, and so on. It is very difficult to explain the unexplainable! So I asked him to give me an example; "What do you say about your art?" "Well," he said, "I paint dogs...there is a mythical dog in my country that does everything that humans do."

What can I say about the essence of my art? What do I represent or express in my art? One can write a story or a philosophical essay and create characters; but I am not a writer; I am rather a reader. My belief is that to create paintings is much more complex. Myself, I go back in memory of my life as far back as earliest childhood, to about when I just started to walk, and what impressions were left in my memory. I cannot go beyond that to remember mentally, but there is a, as I call it, Blood Memory, which is memory stored in the unconscious.

Very often I ask myself, "Why do I paint?" "Why?!?!" and I don't have an answer. I paint by sheer impulse...maybe by accident, or because of my blood memory; as we call it, "soul experience".

Once I visited a friend of mine. We sat on the outside deck, and my friend went into the house to get a bottle of Vodka, and I was left alone for a few moments. I looked around and my eyes caught a sight of a crystal, attached to a branch by a thread, swaying gently in the breeze, and sparkling with the full range of colours, like a diamond. Looking at it, filled me with a great joy. Then my friend appeared with Vodka and so on, and I forgot about it.

A few days later, I remembered it, and again I felt so elated and happy. I asked myself, "What is it?" In the whole universe, here I am, and I just had one look at that piece of glass, and it triggered such a happiness. I was not analytical or mental about it. It just fiilled me with great feelings of sympathy and joy just to be alive. This little piece of crystals, exploded with that full range of colours, merely reflecting sunlight, and at that moment I felt what a surfer must feel when he catches a perfect wave. It filled me again with a great feeling of sympathy and peace. I got such an influx of sympathy, unnamed, and to everything I don't know.

That brings me to my life and paintings. I am painting my imaginary voyage and my deepest sympathy to life. "Why?" Just by the call from my blood memory. I am depicting my deepest sympathy and gratefulness, that I have this privilege; to live in this world, among humans, flowers, animals, to breathe blue air and get filled with golden sunlight.

Gallery 2
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