Lydia Lunch’s quote “If it’s for the money, you’re not doing art. You’re doing commerce” often plays on my mind. I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s when youth culture was anti-establishment and questioning. I don’t think I’ve lost that attitude even now I’m older and greyer and weighed down by the sort of concerns that Lydia warned me about all those years ago. I’ve been lucky that folks like my work, but I’ve never gone out of my way to make work that I think folks will like.
And then I look at the bills on the kitchen table and I think of that quote from F Scott Fitzgerald “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”
And with that firmly in mind, I’ve joined the Saatchi Gallery online. I’ve begun with a series of paintings made in Fiji last year, and a new series of wee Australian paintings from the Grampians/Gariwerd mountain range. You can visit the gallery at www.saatchiart.com/larsstenberg.
I like your dialectical reasoning. Do what you need to. You’re such an awesome painter, I hope your work gets widespread popular. Do you worry that you’ll be painting w/ others in mind?