“A painting is silent. It is not silent but it is silent. What is painted does not move, does not cry, does not go away, but does not respond.

Sometimes in these jars, it is happiness that is imprisoned, sometimes it is a bad dream, sometimes it is the lives of others.

You have to be revolted by the great whirlwind, tormented by a need to freeze what leaks, that is to say everything, anguished by the need to save, to prove that permanence is possible, in order to paint.

I say that but it’s nonsense. Some paint with the strictly opposite ambition.

Anyway, all the paintings are mechanically silent, and that often intimidates, it scares a little, it bothers everyone a priori. In front of a painting, it is not a question of remaining silent or even – if you want my feeling – of talking about the painting, but rather “of making the painting speak”.

Because painting is not there to silence us. It’s up to everyone, without fear of ridicule or whatever, to improvise their interpreter. The paintings try as best they can to make us talk, talk about the weather or something other than the weather, a bit of everything.

About painting, everyone should have the right without constraint to silence the silence.”

Marc Molk