Over the last few months I have reorganized my website 2 times. I used to have all the paintings in just one large gallery of around 100 images. Like a timeline. Chronologically and almost religiously transparent, like making sure my artistic path is completely visible. But, sometimes I would remove a painting that I started disliking over time, or perhaps have always disliked. At those times, I often felt as if I was being less honest.
Then, 2 months ago, I decided that I should curate much more strictly, so with my “curator eyes” I selected around 25% of my works and by doing this, judged my other 75% as second class. Being strict gave me a sense of being “professional”. The 25% selected works I named the “main collection”, and the other 75%, which I just couldn’t dispose of completely; for those, I created an “archive” on this website. I decided it was a serious professional move.
But then a little time passed… Even though the works that I chose for my “main collection” felt strongest, it also felt a bit robbed of spontaneity. Some subjects had almost completely disappeared, and some experimental works had too. Just in general, I had removed playfulness and imperfection. And it was also “curated” with a temporary subjective taste. It really started to feel like self-censorship. And, why? Why do you have to mold yourself into some kind of form, while no one even asked for it? Why is it sometimes difficult to just paint and release it into the world and just letting go. Just letting the viewer decide?
So now I have put everything back, and introduced a few categories based on subject matter. Even though this feels honest, most likely this voice of doubt will return again. But hopefully, not too soon.