* Art ...too many definitions going around. 

Art is creation in a way that affects senses and emotions. Most importantly it should be enjoyment to look at and to "feel" something. Art is a bit like wine; too many people feel a calling to discuss it and theorise about it while, in fact, a good wine is simply a wine you like. Whatever the label says ! Same goes for art, whether it's paintings, sculptures, photos, conceptional constructions, poetry, motion pictures, music etc. Taste and therefor beauty is a very personal thing. Allow me to put in a poem on beauty written by Charles Baudelaire in french :

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La beauté

Je suis belle, ô mortels ! comme un rêve de pierre,

Et mon sein, où chacun s'est meurtri tour à tour,

Est fait pour inspirer au poète un amour

Eternel et muet ainsi que la matière.

             *

Je trône dans l'azur comme un sphinx incompris,

J'unis un coeur de neige à la blancheur des cygnes,

Je hais le mouvement qui déplace les lignes,

Et jamais je ne pleure et jamais je ne ris.

             *

Les poètes, devant mes grandes attitudes,

Que j'ai l'air d'emprunter aux plus fiers monuments,

Consumeront leurs jours en d'austères études;

              *

Car j'ai, pour fasciner ces dociles amants,

De purs miroirs qui font toutes choses plus belles:

Mes yeux, mes larges yeux aux clartés éternelles !

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Inspiration ... something an artist can't do without.

There are two ways the inspiration for a painting come to me. The first is an idea or concept that I think of. Based on that I start looking for photos, pictures or life scenes which I capture by taking photographs myself. Next I make a compilation which agrees with the image/idea/concept that I have in my head. Finally I start putting the big lines & forms on the canvas. The rest I do while painting. The second goes the other way around and is based on something I see like pictures, photographs, events etc and where I have the urge to paint it/him or her.

I keep my art simple, so no explaination needed in order to understand my paintings. What you see is, in fact, what it is. You love it or you hate it. Either way is fine by me because they both are emotions and that is or should be what art is all about !

The world we live in is one enormous source of inspiration. When art is brought with passion by the artist, it cannot be bad or ugly. It may not be to your taste, it may not be pictured the way you see things and people or had in mind because it is based on the artists' perception and perception is reality.

Enough philosophising, I'm going back to my canvas and try to get a picture, that I have in my head, out of it.

Creative greetings

Peter Seminck