And That’s Just About All There Is To It
Source of Inspiration for Magritte’s famous conceptual painting: ici c’est ne pas un pipe?
Title of this Page is a quote, statement of Danill Kharms who in his literary works (sketches of poetic prose) long before Camus introduced his philosophy of existential absurdism, broadly outlined the phenomenon Absurdity as an essential human condition.
His playful ideas of absurdism (relating to the view that there is no order or meaning in human life or in the universe) inspired me to assemble this densely layered visual and intellectual collage, combining Text and Image, not necessarily in their interplay related to each other. See Footnote.
What is empty chairs all about? It covers many meanings, full of symbolism. The Empty Chair has Metaphorical Significance and Emotional Impact: absence, the missing person (expectancy: the hope of return), loss, loneliness.
Instead of a model or a landscape (showing an old scarecrow with balding head and a plastic bag hanging from the belly) or a lake with red swans or a sublime stunning green-blue cloud or a loving couple kissing, some artists prefer a chair to paint. See picture above The Kitchen Chair, painting by G. Richter who blurred contours, he had a special technique of painting in realist style as if he copied out of focus photographs.
Personally I have experienced the emotion of the Empty Chair twice in my life. Once in Sydney airport, I found myself sitting alone, leaving my beloved one, an uncomfortable wait, next to me the empty chair, where she should have been. Once in the funeral of my brother. No one sitting next to me. Shocking moments.
Painting I did abstraction of Two Chairs
The traditional stereotypical view of the empty chair: it represents the symbol of disappearance, somebody has left the chair. You can ask yourself: Why and Where did he go? The image becomes almost a memorial. However, it has the emotional power of association (affective capacity, such as, for example, melancholy).
Artist installation: D. Salcado.
The empty chair can be (as a work of art non-stereotypical) a symbol of resistance, as this installation shows, a mountain of 1550 empty chairs symbolizes the collective disappearance of the victims of civil war in Columbia. The installation is a remembrance of lost life’s. Missing Persons. Who would think of the chair to describe such Tragedy? The Artist did. She is an example of social empathic creativity.
Chairs in action, illustrations from my sketchbook
Snapshot of a situation in the corner of my living room. Two chairs close with eachother. Connected. When I was in therapy to express my thoughts, feelings and unresolved issues , I had conversations with someone who was not in the room, represented by an empty chair. The imagined entity, based on Gestalt Therapy, could be my mother. I was taking the long way home. The empty chair syndrome refers to the feeling that arises when we lose someone special to us. A loving dog, a horse, the parrot reciting Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra in his cage.
Same Snapshot slightly different angle. Two chairs face to face having a conversation no one can hear. They have different origins, one is rooted in France, the other in Denmark. In Japan and Korea alike, they are animistic, believing that the living and the non-living are present together. With that concept I was somewhat struggling, But when I saw the two chairs together, it looked like a real thing. They are communicating. The non-living we live with, co-existing with the rest of all illusions.
Painting I did based on two contrasting tones, title Chair in the Corner. Acrylic on oak panel.
Empty Chair hanging in the gallery space up side down in the middle of a triangle, material steel beans and cast iron. Conceptual Artist Bruce Nauman at work, 1981. He did more pieces with chairs, originally furniture designed for rest and comfort, but he gave the chair another rather unconventional function. In his provocative way he invited art critics to make sense of it. And they responded. Came up for example with this intellectual interpretation: Nauman’s artmaking is intended to show us the instability of the global equilibrium.
Detail of his Installation, two X-shaped steel beams four painted metal chairs, Exhibition Moma 1984.
I like objects from everyday life deprived of their functionality, objects not immediately comprehensible, bordering on the absurd, I also like objects and paintings when they frightens me out of my lethargy, I also like conceptual objects that form a chain of associations in the viewer’s mind, when the viewer loses orientation. American Artist R. Artschwager (funny name) makes a very tricky deceptive manoeuvre with his SPLATTER CHAIR, 1992, MoMA. I suppose I am being manipulated to feel the disturbance. I confess: its a pretty disturbance.
While I am focusing on chairs in the context of symbolism and psychological connotations, I can not, overlooking the modern art history, ignore this piece of work entitled One and three Chairs by Joseph Kosuth, Hungarian-American conceptual artist, inspired by philosophy and semiotics, in his work words are significant, they replace images, here he shows a real chair, a photograph of the chair and the dictionary definition of the chair. He did the same with objects as shovels and hammers. Referring to Duchamp’s urinoir. Art is not in the subject but in the concept.
I don’t have much specific knowledge about conceptual art, but what I do know is that the idea of a concept is more important then the actual realization in whatever form of art. Quote: ‘When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair.’ LeWitt, ‘Paragraphs on Conceptual Art’, Artforum Summer 1967.
Absurdly simple idea. My impossible chair, I invite you: Please do sit down.
Warning Poster. Reality beyond imagining. Chernobyl, once a Village made for Living in a dream now too cruel for dreaming. See Footnote.
Figure standing on table. Figure out his melting feet. Obvious Association candles. He has the dead stare of fallen into oblivion. This could be a Sculptural Tribute to the Great Theorist of Entropy, George Bataille, unconvinced of humanity’s significance on the cosmic scale. Author of the classic novella Blue of the Noon. Great Title. Horrific dark story.
Metaphysical questions: Earth, our planet, Why does it not explain itself? How can we make sense of our place in universe?
A perfect print for a Handkerchief. Nobody looks at this picture with pity or hate, on contrary, there is something touching about it, our lonely earth floating in the infinite darkness of the cosmos, we feel a kind of compassionate love. Its perfectly round as an oracle with hidden meaning. Has Man a Function in Universe? Or are we like rabbits taken in a trap? At least one of the functions might be to fuck along as rabbits do.
PURE COLOR
Splendid Stainless Tablecloth Rectangle Ultramarine (Lapis Lazuli)
Blue Blue blue and More Blue Famous elusive Blue Color Everlasting Source Of Delight
Despite the Fame of Blue, being the magical color of all colors, (Mister Blue Monochrome, as the artist Yves Klein called himself claimed Blue as the color of INFINITY) universally praised for the enduring intimacy between art and design, with its characteristic unique high and low cold and warm temperature, linked with heaven and deep blue seas, I always feel the color is somewhat misunderstood. Maybe because blue will always be in whatever tone, always be blue, but a single blue does not exist, different hues make the color complete. The incalculable variety of blue and all the different associations, all what it symbolizes, that’s translated into a wide spectrum of meanings, meanings that sail away in all kind of directions, carried by the wind through the air like seeds of orchids or just like dust particles.
The colour blue has challenged me since I started painting, in the beginning trying to find my own distinctive palette. Blue was predominant. But black and blue they go together in a strange peculiar way. As Matisse remarked of the black in his paintings: ‘Black is a colour of light and not a colour of darkness.’
I had the wonderful idea of dark light in mind when I painted this triptych in Blue on Black. Underneath the black is a layer of hue yellow. It softens the black.
When seen from outer space with the eyes of astronauts, not looking up skywards but looking down on earth, only in that way I think all the misunderstandings about blue will resolve. I would be more than happy to see the Real Divine Only Blue. Send me to the Moon. Around the Moon and back to earth, splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.
Sophisticated Wallpaper Trendy in London Bourgeois Interiors. See the book title: London Interiors, publisher TASCHEN. Expect to be surprised.
When I stayed in Coogee Beach Hotel in Sydney I had a room with a sea-view, this is an (flattened) abstraction of it. The sky is a straight and narrow band at the painting’s upper rim. I made a Curly Horizontal Line (very ordinary: suggesting movement of waves) of the ultramarine part in stead of a straight line, which would have been more in tune with minimalism. To the hasty viewer the image as a painting presents only shades of blue, but a longer more meditative viewing can result in a surprising experience.
Note on the traditionalist artists doing colourfield paintings.
Trying to express emotion and desire which can not be expressed by words. Seriously? That was the idea of artists working with colourfield paintings. (See Barnett Newman, Pioneer of Abstract Expressionism.) They worked within the frames of a bold pamphlet like programme, which goes like this: ‘Its like seeing everything or seeing nothing. There is not much you can see, not much you can experience, if you are not overlooking the space, if you go deeper than the surface then you might get a view on all there is in the infinite colourfulness. This very emotion works only with colours, forget language, words just lack that impact!’ They were at the piss-stop in the history of modern art.
iridescent blue upper surface open wings
kamilla paralekta underside closed wings
The process of butterfly metamorphosis, a wormlike caterpillar hatched from an egg chances into a startlingly coloured butterfly, seems almost miraculous. The leafwing Kalimma paralekta has an incredible camouflage, when its wings are closed it suddenly resembles an ordinary brown leaf. Spectaculair example of natural mimicry. Although the pattern on the upper surface of the wings is straightforward, the iridescent blue and orange are gorgeous, mesmerizing.
Bruce Nauman Installation View, Naturally Light, Blue Light.
Beautiful sensuous abstract painting very spacious. Could this be a conventional landscape? there is no distant line where the sky appears to meet the surface of the earth. a pleasing variety of mixed colors, with dominant blue spread out, no any disturbing discoloration. Even up side down, horizontally rotated, it looks fabulous.
Here the distant line of te horizon is also absent. How charming, subtle and elegant the sky and ocean blend together into each other, the blue tones mixed with a little off-white are smoothly overflowing. The Australian artist Llyod Rees was a master in toning down colors. His diversified use of colors is incredible, he combined all characteristics of colors in a very exquisite way, and worked with a deep sensitivity toward colour. Look at the spot in this painting where he applied a little pale purple with a hint of pinkish undertone. Peace and Tranquillity is wat I sense in this delightful scene. No doubt, the artist had a high-minded vision of painting landscapes, which he did all his life, devotedly connected with Australian nature.
Astonishing Magical Blue. Arial photo of The Blue Mountains, Sydney, where I honeymooned, back in the eighties. Its A perfect fascinating ultimate idyllic place to relax and recharge after a wedding ceremony in the Greek Orthodox Church, followed by the celebration party in The Opera House. I was in Heaven. In the simplest English words: A sweet karmic love was happening.
Cool. Heating System The Overactive Brain dealing with the Absurd absolutely everything that happens is causally determined to happen exactly as it does by what has already gone before, right back to the beginning of the Universe.
Extraordinary Weird Painting E. Vuillard, title: Mother and Sister of the Artist (1893). Look at the perspective of the floor, steeply rising. The composition All Together being imperfect makes this painting utterly brilliant.
Heavy Brushwork
Detail/cutout. Her pale face, contrasting with the background of the wallpaper, somehow shows a mottled mess of emotions. She is the sister of the painter E.Vuillard, seems to offer a low bow to her brother, as a Japanese gesture. She is part of a weird claustrophobic room situation, home of the painter. He added apart from the browns and blacks other colours, olive-green and greenish-yellow that run together on her patterned dress. I like Vuillard’s hallucinatory state of perception with his psychedelic colors, his autumn gradients are more akin to the psychedelia of the groovy sixties. Compliment for the French Impressionist. Apparently nobody knew who he was.
One of the many Novels I did not Read
All the stories, essays and such pearls. One needs a Second Life to be able to consume them. I like the design book cover, nice typography. Bleeding ink.
Close up of my right hand, front, thumb up middle, fingers are broad, nails thick and curled, the palm leathery, wrinkled. This feels like a self portrait, just like my face my hand belongs to me, manicurist like it as much as the hand of who ever it belongs to. This hand was in contact with many other hands and many materials like typewriters, brushes, keyboards, the mouse, vegetables and flowers, what it did over the years, I could write an endless story about its experiences. Hands have narrative potential (read Paul Auster’s autobiographical novel WINTER JOURNAL). My hand, here it poses in an unusual configuration suggesting what it looks like if you avoid all conventional signals, no sign language, no animal silhouettes, just the hand as a part of the human body. SEE FOOTNOTE (END OF THIS PAGE)
Discrimination of Purple – Woman in Blue Dress painting Matisse who loved Blue Red and Yellow as much as Mondrian did, who found an amazing alternative for female figuration: just straight black lines.
Back to the Empty Chair. Here I used it as in a still life with objects in a boxed space. spotlight on The Incomplete encyclopedia of Philosophy. One part is missing.
Since this book was published (2016) in NEW YORK I am still reading chapters at this very moment, especially the one entitled THE MEANINGFULNESS Of LIVES. Opening rhetorical question: “Who among us has not asked whether his or her life is a meaningful one?’ The type face used in this book is the same I am using here right now special on this page of the website. Note on the cover: Bright Colours appeal to children. This book seems to say: don’t judge me by the cover.
Every Bird That Goes By Gets Me High
Spectacular Trip into Space. Going Higher and Higher to the Atmosphere Beyond, where the birds cannot fly, higher and higher far away from the ordinary elements of Earth, up into space with six astronauts in their spacecraft rotating above earth. Superior literature, original Narrative Perspective, truly an uplifting novel, solid unbruisable prose, Samantha writes like an Angle, with gratitude to NASA.
Wall sculpture Non-Stereotypical work of Art. Beautiful tree-dimensional object that lost its functionality. The answer to what makes it non-Stereotypical is that it is made of waste.
Lovely-sounding word: Crap. Australian researchers concluded that there is no access to a toilet for millions people worldwide. A shocking conclusion. They introduced the slogan: Who gives a crap? Popular also in another context: Cut the crap. I like this sentence: It’s idiotic, poorly done, not funny, boring or in plain words – utter crap! The word crap is related to scrap, which means regular waste.
This Poster Text Needs a Mirror.
About semiotics. After the early internet years, whit its cascade of technological innovations, uncertainties about the status of text have multiplied.
Readers often make different assumptions about text. Here the black stripe, classic symbol of censorship, is missing. Does the interaction between the two words and image contain a contradiction?
Draft Wall Painting title Utopia.
Spiritual Monochromes
This (Japanese) gallery view shows why the world of monochromes have a general dubious vibe, the artists doing monochromes nowadays give their paintings a slick face, usually heavy thick oil paintings with primary hues and various layers of undertones, their work once had a serious place, a weird dominance in the art world middle previous century, but now seems like an almost faded memory. It comes across as credulous, because its purely formal but not factual. It’s as if the monochrome artists of the past wanted to seduce the viewers, trying to make them believe hidden meanings are active behind the cosmos of the canvas, directing the attention to the idea that art was not only a sophisticated visual pleasure, but more as a manifestation of cosmic constellations, which specially appealed to believers of the power of the stars that regulate the balance of the world.
This painting may seem to be Irrelevant. It calls for Discreet Judgement. Colours are subdued and neutral. As if they do not matter. Look at the one line, black and vertical, the other line dark burned brown and horizontal, small and disproportionately bold. Lines separated yet connected. But what the value of this work is? Matter of Interpretation.
Painting dedicated to E. Kelly who made the world a better place to live in. Certainly more colourful.
Curves. Flexible. Who does not like curves? A perfect shape. Unironic visual pleasure. A serene form in geometry. Curves versus Squares that’s like Scruffy versus Slick and Bright versus Muted.
Quote, Steven Bernstein: “Jazz used to be popular music. People would go out to clubs, listen to the music, go home, and get laid. Simple as that. We’re bringing that spirit back.”
What does the design of the CD Cover say about the music?
Listen to this audio file – MP3 – the title says it all: Please Please Please. Its the soundtrack number 15 on the Legendary Album SOLID SENDER, Sex Mob, Steven Bernstein, New York, Fun and Slapstick and Horny Atmosphere and Ironical Drama in Jazz Music. Beware: This song if you listen to it more than once might become an earworm. You will never forget it for the rest of your life. Cheers! The end of the soundtrack, what it means, Nobody has a clou. No lyrics, any words to possibly explain what it is all about, but somehow it resonates a feeling, maybe its the cry for love. Who knows? Matter of Interpretation.
Meeting of Low-Esteem Support Group
Waiting for Levitation – Performing Art is a self-initiated personal activity which Reflect Social Maturation Without necessarily productive outcome.
Smart birds camouflaged as flowers
Come on let’s do a Weekend Paris, Exhibition Paintings & Drawings Philip Guston on till march 2026 THE IRONY OF HISTORY in the Museum Picasso, Paris. Special juicy biographical detail: The Great American Artist who was tormented by his fame loved the Renaissance painters Piero della Francesca, Michelangelo, the fresco’s by Signorelli, and Masaccio. Who is asking Why?
OK Ending a Passionate Long Term Relationship isn’t Easy. The warm orange intensifies her vulnerability. Curious about the location? Afghanistan.
She’s holding the portrait of her defeated demon, holding it up means she is showing a short-cut to Hell. Same time celebrating the dictator is dead. Different Disciplines come Together, giving Imagination somewhere to go, In-Between hard and soft. The Story behind the photograph, can it be More Absurd?
Wall Painting size 600 x 300 cm. Twice Z. Facing each other. They look like swans, curly shaped. But they miss their beautiful black eyes. I once had a dream, woke up and saw a white Swan standing in the corner of my bedroom, looking at me, as in asking: What’s Up? I was mesmerized, speechless. I felt privileged having the animal’s company in my bedroom. Spread The wings, flew out trough the roof, high over me, flying up to the Sky. Giving me an unforgettable moment for ever carved in my memory. But maybe it was me, stepping out of my body, maybe I dreamt I was transformed in a swan, just about to take off, ready for a Fantastical Meander into a far away place.
Self-portrait wintertime at home in Amsterdam, 2025. No surely not the ugly fake duckface and not the ugly fake anti-pose selfieface called Gen Z-pout combined with the dead stare. The ultimate selfieface is when you are posing whitout considering how you look in the eyes of other judgy people. By the way, I like the background, nice. Ask me how many photographic self portraits I did? Don’t know lost count, but surely not as much Picasso painted: 181 self portraits, oil on canvas. That’s actually nothing compared with how many Rembrandt produced. But Picasso claimed he somehow was present in almost all of his paintings. He had a Big self loving Ego. Gertrude Stein in 1924 wrote an absurd note on Picasso’s approach towards the genre self-portraits in her poem: A Completed Portrait of Picasso: “He he he he and he and he and and he and he and he and and as and as he and as he and he. He is and as he is, and as he is and he is, he is and as he and he and as he is and he and he and and he and he.”
Humanity seems doomed to do more evil than good. Free speech is under attack, due to the shifting balance of power in a changing world order. Democracies must be protected from the tyranny of totalitarian regimes. One of the Words that appears frequently together with tyranny is fascism, other synonyms are despotism and dictatorship. Is The Iron Hand of The Punishing Executioners of Freedom of Speech a Stable Effective political System? Answer: of course a two letter word ending with O. What to do? Read this book. Compliments for the essays and cover. See Footnote.
Talking about design bookcovers, this is one of the funniest design. Its Irish, its clever and humorous. Since the book was released (2019) I still now in 2026 enjoy this intriguing cover. Often ask myself why? Don’t want to overexplain it, I imagine I am one of the men sitting at the pub table in Belfast.
I am the man sitting in the middle. Look at the bag, it does not have holes for the eyes. The characters in the book (a great novel stylistically brilliant) are missing the compassion to engage in the world. They love sharp clothes, a good drink. They don’t co-exist with the rest of society. Suffering the torture of boredom, ready to rob a bank. I can relate to that. Being out of it and feeling something special is sooner or later about to happen.
Stalin and the Pig mask. Very subtle and advanced bookcover design for the series Classics Pinguin Publishers. Seamlessly connected to the content of the novel. Stalin and Pig, related by blood.
Inflatable Materials
Sublime Sculpture by Willy Orskov, title Flexion, 1967. Nylon, plastic, rubber and lease base plate. This is undoubtedly the highlight of his amazing oeuvre. It looks like a casual formation, this theatrical assemble of inflatable materials, melodious, flexible, with a lame excuse for the stiffness. Reference implicitly to African Art (totemism) and Aboriginal Art? Or is it a parody? Slapstick? I wonder if it is still in good condition.
Illustration autumn leafs VISUAL SUPPORT short story WHAT OLD AGE CAN DO
What Old Age Can Do
My friend (77) was getting more depressed about his age, getting older and older made him tired and unmotivated to continue the misery of it all. He was not the shining example of the socalled disability paradox: to keep a high level of wellbeing despite deterioration. He was moving to dark places of the mind where there is no beauty left, no stars sparkling. A shame, heartbreaking really, to see him deteriorate like that, the undignified way he decrowned himself .
Ageing in the autumn, that late life process, did not allow him, withstanding all usual limitations, to live the last short period of his life with some measure of grace. Its hard to see lovely blooming flowers in dead leafs falling of the trees. Its hard to accept the absolute end of your life story coming soon. Just inevitable, today or tomorrow, you don’t know when, could be years from now, could be right now, but whenever, it is just inevitable.
It was disappointing to observe him cracking up mentally, he lost track of modern time, lost his clear view. Although familiar with the Darwin theory of evolution, he could not understand anymore why the world had to chance constantly. He use to trick his way trough troubled times. Now it was like he was trapped in a labyrinth.
Once a flexible open mind he became small-minded, full prejudices and conservative assumptions about the terrible imbalance of the modern world. Was he a victim of neurological brain-damage which in general make elderly people incurably sick? With the transitional effect of destructing own personality?
My friend was not only terrified by death, he was also afraid of the nothingness after death, whatever that means. No reservation for a table in heaven?
I told him and here comes the punchline: death my friend is just a fucking fact of life, learn to live with it as long you are being granted to enjoy it.
I looked at him with compassion, knowing my cliche could not impress him. He stood up, ready to end our conversation. The way he moved, his body-language, I received a strange signal, something happened, as if he entered another space. He approached slowly. With open palms of his hands. Apologizing? His face looked like it had not seen daylight for a long time. On top no hair, his nose had the colour of a mouldy strawberry. He came really close and smiled directly in my eyes, as only friends do in their moments of deep understanding and he said in his mournful soft voice: ‘Right’.
I replied: ‘Right!’
Then suddenly, he showed a weird excitement, it surprised me, the colour of his face chanced, his ears scarlet red. Maybe he was back on his throne again, king in his own right. Whit a big happy smile he said: ‘You know what I want to be when I die, I want to be a detective!’
We did our traditional bear hug and when he left I said to him: ‘Keep it together brother!’
Arabian Journey - Sabah El Nour
Song dedicated to my friend who passed away last year. He liked the sound of Arabian music.
And That Is Just About All There Is To It
Footnote About Mister Charms (born in the wrong place at the wrong time, cause of death: starvation in USSR-prison) in a nutshell: It might seem like he’s driven by theatrical narcissistic motifs fooling around with absurd statements, that he is impossible to take seriously; that he deliberately produces silly writings, unreasonable or ridiculous. If you do think so and if you don’t have a sense of humour, please do not read him, waste of time. On the other hand it would be foolish to eulogize his oeuvre, which is missing Real Literary Virtuosity, but he is undoubtedly an icon. He pleasantly disturbs The Order Of Things, privileging The Absurd to an overwhelming degree.
Footnote Design Studio Skripka. Poster dedicated to Chernobyl disaster. April 1986, today 26 April 2026 exact 40 years ago the nuclear Power Station exploded. When Ukraine was a vital part of the Soviet-Union. The location of the village has turned into Zone of Alienation.
Footnote Spread in a ritual gesture or raised in blessing, the human hand is one of the fundamental signs and symbols in the principal religions in the world. It started in the caves ancient time, a primitive print of the handpalm in clay on the walls underground. Since then many artists have been inspired. I can recommend an unique publication, the book Artist’ handbook – George Wittenborn’s Guestbook, with 21st Century Additions Initiated by Ronny Van de Velde. Publisher Lidion, January 2007, fabulous images, weight: four kilo, 600 pages with the personal hands drawn of well known and less well known artists. It’s a collector’s item. Here’s Another Recommendation: I have been experimenting with words to describe how important the hand is from the very beginning of history. Do read my research presented in the text I have published entitled: Phenomenology of hands.
Footnote Here is a positive note on tyranny which I have found in the memoir THE PIANIST by Wladyslaw Szpilman: “History teaches us that tyranny has never endured.” Exterminate the Jews, that was the diabolical aim of the Nazi’s. The author as a young Jewish pianist survived the war in the Warsaw ghetto. Roman Polanski made an unforgettable movie of this story.
NOTIFICATION This is my last page, from here its goodbye. The website, which I started 20 years ago, quietly and relaxed, has become monumental and will stay a while on line, for the time being, but I will not produce anymore content. To the question what happened to the Artist with all his New Ideas & Perspectives, indulged in reveries of Art and Literature, I reply: Flown away. Free.