The banal painting – that which survives – has overcome hard diseases, heart attacks, malignant illnesses and even death. It has overcome all of these due to its basic instinct, originating in the sub-consciousness, which manifests itself in the relation of the eye, hand and a fresh can of paint.

It is still moving to see how children put lines and spots together, and depicts vast worlds within a single naive moment. It is still touching to see people who have grown old, and suddenly turn to their long lost dream and start painting and dreaming.

Marcel Duchamp was right! One has to be ‘stupid like a painter’ in order to continue painting, thinking that the real world doesn’t exist out there. In order to feel strong heartbeats when red meets green, or when sun-yellow waits for the blue to ground it, and oppose it.

Painting triumphs despite the analytical death obituary put out in its name, due to the primeval human need to express what is on one’s heart.

– Shai Azoulay