What is an image? A result of creation, or an objectively existing entity?
Painting, for me, is an attempt to describe spaces that were previously unknown to me. At the same time, I have the impression that every reality I reveal with the help of paint and canvas already exists in its essence — it simply “is” somewhere out there.
I do not know whether I create or invent images. I feel closer to understanding this process in terms of “discovery.” My presence in the process of making a painting is more about uncovering what has so far remained unseen, concealed. In this sense, I feel closer to the role of an explorer traveling to unknown lands than to that of a demiurge creating something out of nothing.
My perspective is highly subjective — I imagine that many artists perceive themselves as creators, and the creative process as an act of creation in the literal sense. Who the creator is, and what their creation is, may remain an unresolvable philosophical question.
On the other hand, is it not the case that there are “phenomena” that exist independently of us? Scientists do not create phenomena (physical, chemical, astronomical, etc.); they merely discover and describe them. And is not an image, too, a phenomenon?
