GENESIS
At the beginnig, the questions are about the birth of the Universe, of the birth of man and his relation to the world ; the forces that instigate motion, harmony, existence, the mysteries of life, the laws of alterations and transformation.
The answers to these fondamental questionnings rose from religions, myth., magic, philosophy, morality, customs, regulations and law.
The essential question is creation in its triple dimension : biological (animal and plant life), cosmic and anthropological (physical and psychological.
Myartwork helps me to freeze what is running through my mind, the dreams that haunt my soul and the ideas that obsess my brain.
Will is the tool to the process and life is the material. My aim is to get to my own individuality. I think that will can also make me to get my life structured.
I am deeply convinced that the beginning of any artwork is pain, a kind of strong vital experiment, a conflict. To face the problem and to give shape to expression is the only reason to action. The first thing to do is to put aside the culturel inheritance. Only daily experiment and permanent consciousness give birth to creation and it occurs sometimes at the most unexpected moments. To me it is the only way to give a commun basis to shape and content. I have to create it all, I must get drowned into the unknown and be ready to jump into emptiness.
Gradually the artwork grows Inside me. I bear it everyday. I get used to thinking and to reacting by pictures, almost unconsciously. I discover the way while I head on. To me painting is a way to think over life. Action is more in thinking than in observing. Painting is willing to see reality, to discover it and to make it understood. From the conflict of will and material, tensions arise that create balance. My artwork is the truth I experiment and helps my sensitivity to grow.
PROCESS
In my pictural universe « The first man » is the main character. He might be thought of as Nietzsche’s Zarathoustra. The new metaphysician has really got the sense of the earth. He runs after the ascetic ideal. He hates those who refuse tragical thinking and have sooner to delude people with sweet and dangerous hopes. He loves neither Gods nor masters. He only believes in energy, force, power, the contrary of violence. I have been obsessed with him because such a virility has been lacking these days.
FINALITY
My artwork does not end with itself. It is not the sum of frozen truths, in a limited time. I want it to be a part of my life. My artwork will go on as long as its own growing will offer different lights. Each painting is an end and a beginning, contrasting, altering, complementing one another. My artwork is not based on expressivity. It is based on word as a conveyer for ideas to be discovered. It is based on picture as a necessary result of my work and not as an end.
Texts, paintings, drawings get their meaning as a whole.
This is my message and I wish it can be universal.
Ray Monde
Paris 1995
