Noah Balon Belgium, b. 2003

I am not a printer. It is important that I struggle with painting; that is what makes me human.

I am looking for something that I do not need to find. I do not know what it is, but I will know it if I ever find it. What I am trying to find could also be a very bad painting. What attracts me or appeals to me in this is precisely the struggle, the fact that I am not quite there yet. That is exactly where the strength lies. It is something outside myself that makes me know whether something works, something I cannot control and do not need to try to understand. Because if I were to find it, I would have to start doing something else.

My work takes the form of both essays and jokes. The process has become the work; everything is in it: the attempts, the detours, the hesitation and the coincidences. I work with a bricolage logic, looking at what works, what offers resistance and what fails.

I am very aware of the status of painting. I do not fool myself and I know that there is nothing new to invent; there is an abundance of work. And yet I paint. I constantly give small nods to those who came before me. I find it important to carry all of that with me, a suitcase full of those who have already done the work, including those who are not painters and those who are still to come.