"There are a number of reasons why I like to use banal, everyday objects. It may be partly because the objects that surround us in our everyday lives are the most accessible ones, the first ones you see, but I also use them because I want to exalt even the smallest, most insignificant objects. This goes along with the ideas of mysticism and particularly what Saint Theresa used to say about how you can find God even in pots and pans. The cosmic quality I like to give things like chairs, scissors, a pair of espadrilles, is a way of showing that even an armpit can be every bit as transcendental as the most conventional sacred image." -- Antoni Tapies.
"Take a look at the simplest of objects. Let's take, for example, an old chair. It seems like nothing. But think of the universe comprised within it; the sweaty hands cutting the wood that used to be a robust tree, full of energy, in the middle of a luxuriant forest by some high mountains. The loving work that built it, the joyful anticipation of the one who bought it, the tired bodies it has helped, the pains and the joys it must have endured, whether in fancy halls or in a humble dining room in your neighborhood. Everything, everything shares life and has its importance! Even the most worn down of chairs carries inside the initial force of the sap climbing from the earth, out there in the forest, and will still be useful the day when, broken into kindling, it burns in some fireplace."
-- Antoni Tapies.
