Beyond Beauty: A Conversation with Paul Reynard

"My own experience is that there are moments when suddenly, after I've been working a long time at painting, I'm no longer trying to make or do something. I begin to be led, as if my brush were just following where the painting in its finished state was leading me. At that point I am open to something which most of the time I am unable to express, because I want to direct it. I want to make it myself, to be sure. And strangely enough, the best moment and the best result is when I am here in front of the painting, and the hand is, so to speak, free. I am not imposing. At the same time it is me who paints. But it is as if I were following a kind of secret indication. I am no longer fighting. The struggle takes place before this moment, when I'm on the point of giving up. And if at that point I'm sensitive enough, then something opens. Completely new. And there is something which seems to me true - it's only a word, but I cannot find another way to express it - something true in relation to what I am within myself then and there, at that moment." Artist Paul Reynard shares more about art, freedom, beauty, and the sacred in this wonderful conversation with Jacob Needleman.

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