I.
Paint is warm and erotic, pixels are cold and distant like stars.
Pixels cannot tell the truth - paint cannot lie.
Paint is close to the skin, pixels are close to gravediggers, capable of entring to realm of death itself.
Just like a mirror, a digital representation doesn't share intimacy with what is being represented. Such is the paradox of the mirror: it unlocks the world by stealing its images, but the gate that unlocks stays closed. It is possible to digitally visit the cave of Lascaux, but that does not mean you enter the cave.
II.
Painting enables us to see what painting can be and what it wants to be: a gentle reminder
(and a warning) which entrusts us with the true secrets of visions, our intimacies with the world, the liaison between life and attention. That trust is invited by the paradox of paint: in paint images live forever, and at the same time paint is their grave.

Paint is even further removed from the image than the mirror: it is closer to the skin and the bones beneath it.
Indeed a form of painting which imitates the mirror exists. But only a form of painting which is not subject to the slavish executive act of projection does justice to the inherent qualities of painting itself. This is deep painting: a minor uprising against the digital media, not just for the sake of rebellion (the greatness of the mirror is beyond doubt) but to remind us that our imagination is a crucial form of intimacy with the world and ourselves, and that the nature of our imagination longs for the corporeal.
III.
The rise and merging of the digital media, at a pace and scale predicted by no one, we have seen it happen, and we learned: however great their value to us, it is the nature of the digital media to claim the world as a something that can be known... Nevertheless, what is offered by the digital media is little more than a suggestion of familiarity, and therefore alienation, whereas in our cave true intimacy with the world, with others and ourselve... is corporeal and inextricably bound up with technique, unique singularities, passionate surrender.

In that cave, our mind is put to the test, and the vast mysteries that form the fabric of all worlds are increased instead of reduced to an illusion hat suggests intelligence may take possession of a world. Deep art is the retort in which that illusion can be purified.
IV.
It would be absurd to reject the digital media, or pixels. But when it comes to the corporeal, imagination, the personal domain... the digital mirror throws a ghostly light.
Let there shine another, more disturbing (or: more healing) reflection: one that doesn't suggest omnipotence, that gives us a glimpse of what is behind the mirror, a glimpse into our pain even.
In that pain paint provides us with the most futile, invalid, excremental and puny attempt the universe has to offer when it comes to metamorphoses. It is, after all, the tangible and not bloodless bits that accompanies the most intimate, vulnarable and precious aspects of our lives.
We regard this notion as self-evident, realizing at the same time that this is not the case.
V.
A glimpse that deeply touches what is behind the mirror: painting offers that possibility, provided the painting is deep.

First: painting is a celebration of intimacy between thought, vision, and matter .
Therefore, painting is the sublime entrance to the world behind the grand mirror.
Second: a painting is more than just an image worked out in paint . Denying this is tantamount to a negation of painting itself, to considering the act of painting as no more than an ad interim - and that would be a denial of freedom and a deceit in one.
We maintain: behind the impotence of digital solitude still lies the space that gives access to our imagination, to sharing, to trust in the here and now, our deepest intuitions, feelings, thoughts. Paint that follows deep art is the vehicle of that. That vehicle also warns us: alienating ourselves by means of the mirror from our capacity to corporeal presence, is alienation of ourselves from ourselves.
VI.
Lascaux, now also digitally accesible, teaches us a new song.
The difference between the face and the face in the mirror never seemed to be a real issue.
That has changed, and we know the issue is of vital importance to the way we see ourselves, our world, the future of our species. We also know how crucial our acceptance of imperfection is in this regard.

Painting as such seems to be of no importance, but, like music, dance and poetry, it is one of those things which connect us profoundly not only with childhood but also with our far ancestors - among them the cave-dwelling painters of Lascaux.
VII.
And so this plea calls for a painting which returns the art of painting to us. For painting is an art of sublime imperfection connecting us with our corporeal being as well as with the imagination that moves it like an enchating wind; a warning against the tempting idea that demands the reduction of the world and humanity to merely uncorporeal images; a bridge for the eye called serenity.
December 2009,
Jan de Beus
Michael de Kok
Erik Oldenhof
Olphaert den Otter
Jaap de Vries
Leon Willigendael © 2009 lascauxian@gmail.com