Published in Brabants Dagblad (NL), October 2001
"Talking about my work will mostly result in talking about the process of painting. My work is so personal that I prefer to keep most of the background information to myself (my work has mostly secret titles that I don't share) and leave as much as possible open to the interpretation of the viewer. Painting is one big crisis. Colourful, bright paintings that you see on my exhibitions may suggest differently, but in fact they are all survivors of an enormous battle that has been going on while I was alone in my studio. In Spain I sometimes paint with temperatures of 40 degrees. The hot air is filled with turpentine, sweat, oil paint, Spanish voices from the street and loud music from my stereo. From Bach to PJ Harvey to Pepe Habichuela, who mixes Spanish guitar with Indian sounds. The music lifts me up a little. I respond to it. I prefer mostly up tempo for painting. Many things can happen in a short time. To me the important thing is to stop in time and keep the paint fresh. It is not difficult to work the paint so much that it ends up dead. But the subject of my work is alive and the very point to me is bringing the paint to life in the process of painting. When I'm painting I try to only feel, watch and respond. In this way the painting gets a chance to become a reflection of myself and  there is room for surprises. I use a lot of paint. Specially when I scrape off the whole canvas if I don't like it. Many times it happens that after an entire day of painting I leave my studio with "nothing". Or with 3 paintings that I have been able to rescue at their supreme moment. Painting is extreme and unpredictable. That's also what makes it exciting. Painting in my opinion can be like an instinct that can be stored in the body. Very physical and powerful. It can completely knock you out.    
At a group exhibition in Madrid I met a young Spanish painter (Eduardo Alvarado) who told me that he found my work "extremadamente erótico" (extremely erotic). I have the feeling that the erotics are in the way that I treat the paint, not so much in the subject. When I paint a landscape, the same feeling can rise from it as the feeling that you can have with a female nude. Female nude is not really a choice. It is something that I have available all the time."
On painting