If you think you understand reality, dream on

My new work is about the right to dream and the right to imagine. Charlie Brown wears a heart on the outside, and Snoopy understands the internal workings of it. Our friends should know the difference between when we are dreaming and when we are lying. Particularly when we are lying to ourselves.

In the end it’s all just an illusion, or delusion (as I’ve written on the artwork). Face it, the real world works the same way as the artworld, only we have composition to hide behind. If you’re not an artist you won’t understand but never mind.

The challenge as an artist in the present is how to make an art of affirmation without looking like you belong to some mad cult. Once upon a time, artists used actual politicians to show how up-to-date and politically correct they were. That was before the politicians started using the artists.

To step back from any symbiotic relationship, as an artist, is very difficult. To render oneself anonymous so as not to embark on persuasive friendships could be one of the hardest things an artist can do. I don’t mean to boast, but I have managed to make art that people love and live with, without appealing to their religious, traditional or political convictions. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have any of my own.

I just want people to feel free to love, and to love to be free. Of course you have to ask how you got there, but that is a tricky discussion for another day.