I don’t believe in “Artists’ Statements,” those overblown and convoluted explanations about what artists do and what their paintings mean. In my books, catalogs, and articles I write about my life and experience as an artist, the way I feel about things that matter. You’ll note it doesn’t answer particular questions about my work.

There’s a reason.

Visual art doesn’t stand on words. They only muddy what a painting says. What’s on the canvas should not be explained away with clever talk. Writing or speaking about it is an intellectual process. My pictures are not intellectual. They’re intuitive, painted under the tutelage of a benign spirit, mostly. And he prefers to remain silent as well.

If I talked about my work, you’d see it the way I see it. If I told you what I meant when I painted a thing, or what I wanted to tell you when I chose a particular subject, I would corrupt you. I would take away the innocent pleasure of your first and subsequent looks. You would stand in front of the painting and think about my words, and thinking about them, you would not see what I painted. You would see what I told you to see. Even if you were strongly against seeing it this way, it would be an argument that would cloud your vision. It would not make for an interesting dialogue.

In short, the work is what it is. If it speaks to you, you’ll understand it. If it doesn’t, it won’t matter if I’ve supplied you with a whole lot of reasons for its importance. If it’s any good, you’ll already know everything about it.

Conversely, if it doesn’t speak to you, move on, forget about it. It’s my failure, not yours.

It’s up to the critic to describe what an artist’s work means. The artist himself is a poor source of information. He’s too close to it, he’s not an impartial witness and he’s probably not terribly coherent.

Art is a visual exchange between the one who paints it and the one who looks at it. It speaks all the languages, but none of them very well.

-Windsor Joe Innis
Painter of Pictures