What I particularly like about this painting
is the modesty and humility; the simplicity
of the composition on the one hand, but on
the other hand, the painting is so exquisite
and so exuberant in its attention to detail.
Zurbarán created this dialectical tension
between the simplicity and this virtuous equality.
I like the way the spacing of Zurbarán's
painting has been compressed by using the
very dark background and relatively narrow
ledge for the foreground, bringing a very
particular tension.
It's almost breathless and deadly, and yet
there is something so alive in the painting.
There is something about the mathematical
arrangement of the elements trying to reach
perfect balance between those very few elements,
and within this perfect balance, we reach
a distilled composition – this idea of equilibrium,
which can be associated with death or the
end of things.
When I look at this painting, it seems the
process is so introverted in his engagement
with the surfaces, with the subject, with
the beautiful and delicate relationship of
the flower that is just hanging in balance
and the proximity of the petals to the edges
of the cup, the way the lines dissolve into
this void of the plate.
Also, you look at the circular shapes through
the painting, and you see how many circles
exist on the plate and each of the petals.
The handle of the cup, the top of the cup;
it's a circle within a circle and in the same
token one can look at the triangular relationship
that exists between the three elements and
how those geometries are holding the tension
in relation to each other.
For a work of art to come to life, it's about
those relationships that exist in between
attraction and repulsion, and there is something
about this painting that, on the one hand,
is so modest and pure, and on the other hand,
you realise the energy, time and almost show-off
qualities that are coming to life in the reflections
of the surfaces that are just so exquisite.
The abilities of the painter are way beyond
any other still life painting throughout the
history of painting, and I can say this without
exaggerating.
I think that there is something so beautiful
just in engaging and looking and allowing
those elements that are present there on the
surface.
When I make work it is somehow in conversation
with the Old Masters, where the starting point
is that those pieces will resonate over a
long period of time, and one day something
will come together somehow in a way that I
cannot really pin down.
I'm not sure in a hundred years or 200 years
from now if any of my work will survive and
if somebody will encounter it, how they will
interpret it then.
What I really would hope is that the experience
will be a more formal one, and through looking.
