There are infinitely many ways to occupy one’s time and build a career, and painting may not be among the best life choices. The process of creating a painting is free from any obligation, and that is precisely where its difficulty lies. A consistent creative practice requires unwavering faith that these works will one day leave the studio, be exhibited in a gallery, or sold—but there is no guarantee that this will happen. A person committed to producing useless (yet aura-filled) objects entrusts their life to the whims of chance, much like someone aspiring to become an Olympic-level athlete.

One could say I chose this profession over others because what matters most to me is what is unforced. Paradoxically, however—because I have to earn a living—I adhere to the daily schedule that school and later work taught me, obediently alternating between alertness and rest. Therefore, what is most important to me—my creative expression along with all its pleasant consequences—belongs by default to the category of “nonessential,” waiting each day for the moment when no one is watching to emerge into the light, unfold like a shy flower, and catch the tail end of the afternoon.

For me, painting is tangible proof that nonessentiality is a fundamental quality and a condition for the existence of what matters—that if what is important were made “necessary,” it would lose its reason for being. Artistic creation is the practice of loving something that exists even though it need not exist. Until something comes into being, no one knows it was missing—and this applies to everything that exists (myself included). Awareness of this fact makes it impossible for me to resist the impulse to produce nonfunctional artifacts, which one can at most look at and then ponder.