Femme et oiseau

'Man is creative space in infinity with all its complexities. I work now from this point of view, or rather experience, which is not a cerebral or intellectual thought, because then I'd make myself a prisoner. It is just this experience which frees me and my work. I have to release all the possibilities and discoveries of my time to be able to employ all possibilities. Instead of psychological individualism, like my early portraits, sad people, I now think of a magical individualism. The personal experience such as joy, sorrow, love, and hate is replaced by a universal and spatial experience.
Again I paint portraits, man in relief. The portraits and heads I painted earlier had a magical expression, through their features, expression, and violence, while now the personal or momentary emotion is the most important. The spatial color planes are placed next to each other and over each other on a background of space, together forming man.' ('Karel Appel on Karel Appel' in: A. Frankenstein, Karel Appel, New York 1980, p. 99)