Jo Baer

“I have no idea! You've got more exotic Irish than I have. My neighbors would never tell me that sort of thing. They don't talk that way to me. I think it's rather interesting: a bunch of new paintings I'm thinking of doing still keep the “Giants” in mind. I came across something a couple of weeks ago where they found bones in Northern Ireland of a woman and a man. And I guess either in the same graves or next door to each other. But they were brother and sister. Incest. Maybe like the Pharaohs: they ruled as brother and sister.”

“No, I wasn't interested in being Irish. And I wasn't interested in being in the Irish—in the sense of their mindset and miracles … I think you called them “myths.” But in the scheme of things, I liked the Irish and I liked living in Ireland and moreso familiarizing myself with their bewitching landscape and that story.”

“On the same canvas. Yes. Well, that's essentially what I'm doing. And I have been tempted to say that I make history paintings—but I know quite well that nobody anymore knows what I mean. If you say “classic,” that doesn't mean anything, but “history painting” is what I'm doing and I know I'm doing that, but I wouldn't choose it as a way of explaining it to an audience today cause they don't know.”

“Narrative is telling a story, I’m providing a situation. And it's in time, right now. Paintings are not in time. These are not narrative paintings. They can't be. Painting is boom: it's one time! It doesn't move, unless you put two of them in diptychs, or cartoon strips. And that's how they move. You can be doing narrative that way, if you want. But single paintings are a situation, they're snapshots. So, I avoid the word narrative. I'm not telling a story. I'm telling a situation. And I don't know a better way to say that. If you have a better way, please give it to me now.”