…so much of painting is this. It’s a recalling and churning up of experience and memory that can never be planned, relied on, or trusted. But my process requires trust. I begin with random marks and colors that over time coalesce… . Little by little, the anxiety lessens as…decisions are made and options grow fewer until a painting is made.

Paul Behnke, “No Title.” Acrylic on canvas, 18 x 18 in. 2013. © Paul Behnke. Courtesy of the artist.

In the summer of 1989 I took my first trip abroad and visited Paris. I took rolls and rolls of film and sketched, and visually collected even more sights.

Most of the photographs and memories are lost to time but one image was lodged in my head and has become a visual touchstone – one of those images that pops into your head at weird times, an image that makes such a visual impression (who knows why) that you find yourself doodling it or even dreaming about it.

For me this touchstone is the Winged Victory of Samothrace in the Louvre – more specifically, her silhouette. In my memory, this was the first artwork I encountered in the museum, although, I cannot be certain if this is true–or even if I remember exactly where the statue is located. In fact, my Nike is even further removed from the experience of the original. When I recall the event, the fist image that comes to my mind is a snapshot I took. I held onto it for years until eventually, it was lost.

…so much of painting is this. It’s a recalling and churning up of experience and memory that can never be planned, relied on, or trusted. But my process requires trust. I begin with random marks and colors that over time coalesce… . Little by little, the anxiety lessens as…decisions are made and options grow fewer until a painting is made.

I often wonder why this particular visual experience continues to surface and why it spontaneously began to appear as a dominant form in my painting twenty-three years after the original experience and ten years after I’d last seen the snapshot.

But, so much of painting is this. It’s a recalling and churning up of experience and memory that can never be planned, relied on, or trusted. But my process requires trust. I begin with random marks and colors that over time coalesce into forms and spatial relationships. Little by little the anxiety lessens as, consciously and unconsciously, decisions are made and options grow fewer until a painting is made.

—Paul Behnke, Brooklyn, November 2013

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All Images © Paul Behnke. Courtesy of the artist.

Paul Behnke lives and works in Brooklyn. His upcoming curatorial project, Eight Painters opens at Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, Chelsea, on January 4, 2014. His most recent exhibition, An Awful Rainbow ran at Markel Fine Arts in Spring, 2013.

Paul Behnke also authors the contemporary art blog, Structure and Imagery.

Editor’s Rec:
John Yau on Paul Behnke and Stanley Whitney in Hyperallergic Weekend (Who’s Afraid of Hot Pink, Canary Yellow, and Midnight Blue?) (5/5/13)

James Panero’s catalogue essay An Awful Rainbow. (April, 2013)

John Yau A Theatre of Color. (Abstractcritical.com) (9/13/12)