Page 14 - Art Reveal no8

14 Art Reveal Magazine

connected with the ecstatic way of living, what life should have been. As a twenty-something I
won the second prize in designing a new poster for the 50th anniversary of Lintas Worldwide
SSC&B Lintas Worldwide Brussels. As a result of that I earned a two weeks stint of apprentice-
ship at their agency in Brussels. When I worked there, in plain summer holidays, I did nothing
but stare through the window and literally looked at the green lawns outside. I thought it was
not a job for me, to be a creative director. Instead I began hitchhiking, for three months through
Spain and then on to Morocco. When I came back I was contracted for sic months for the agen-
cy. I was told that if got hired I would have to work in weekends, unpaid, for a few years, but
that I would be able buy myself a Porsche with my salary. The dangling carrot meant nothing
to me. I am a dreamer, literally! I used to dream in the classroom much to the annoyance to the
teacher, and to my peers who always thought I was staring at them; they bullied me and resent-
ed me. I was all a society, built on consumerism, did not want!

I did not pursue a career where I would have to design advertisements for Monsanto, Volvo,
and what have you. Art is ecstasy, so I was a Bohemian to begin with, and I could only find
solace in a Bohemian lifestyle. So, choosing a profession (being an artist is a calling, not a
profession)… when I was seven years old I told everyone I was going to work for Walt Disney,
I was going to go to school on the back of an elephant, I would drive my mother around the
world in a Roman or Greek chariot. The closest thing to an artist is being a shaman; Joseph
Beuys already said that. We artists conjure, mesmerise, and we heal with art. Just look at the
Hopis, or the Navahos with their healing sand rugs. And reflecting on my intuition that I got to
heed more, as I got older, is a proof of my shamanic identity. I would have loved to be dancer, a
singer, I do both very well, but I chose painting. I would not have endured or to get famous and
be on world tours with roadies! I do miss the ecstasy in the painting activity; it is very introvert
as an activity, whereas dancing and singing is ecstatic. The energies are unleashed, the DMT
and adrenaline unlocked. But then a shaman is an artist and an artist is in a true and deep sense
a shaman. They live on and create with and through ecstasy…we process our own demons, art
has a function, a catalyst, it is a healing factor. The shaman in every child is killed, smothered at
school. More and more parents are guilty of that as they send them as earl as three years old!!
Everything comes from within and we are telling them to look for themselves outside of them.

What do you like/dislike about the art world?

The artist has become a product like the art he/she produces. There is a demand, a market, a
financial market on which galleries play like the Wall Street guys. It has become a game of them
and us. Money destroyed it basically, has sickened it. People get into it like in any business, for
the wrong reasons-to become famous or to get rich.
What is the good thing about art? Art brings back childhood memories, rekindles us our soul
and conscience; it brings back the child in us, but mine has never left me. Just being able to sit
still and color, create a world out of nothing. Like music it unites people, it is universal, it is
human soul searching and healing.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given?

-Not to get married
-Carpe Diem
-However, the best advice comes from within, follow your own compass, and don’t look over
your shoulder and never look back either. Be proud of being the a non-conformist, a teacher, a
storyteller, a guru, a shaman!