It is about the experience of painting...

I found some much resonance between Zabou's paintaing and Michelle Cassou text about her painting experience...

"The Experience of Paintingby Michele CassouThere is a piece of paper in front of me. It is white and has a feeling of aliveness and depth, as if I could be absorbed in it. I feel this pressure, this call from the paper. My hand starts going toward the paints, and I see myself taking a dark red or a 'violet or a blue. I let the form come; I do not choose, decide, or compose. As I draw the first line my heart is beating strongly and my breath is rapid. My whole body tingles as I touch the piece of paper. I feel like someone who has discovered a new land for the first time.When I look at the painting I am surprised; it seems as though something has taken form inside me and on the paper at the same time. I receive it, not in my mind but in my body, and the message goes back and forth, a dance between me and the painting completing itself. The colors just come, I go toward them without reason.I started painting 30 years ago, when I enrolled into several art schools in Paris. They taught the way of learning step by step, obeying the rules and concepts, slowly mastering the skill in hopes of eventually developing creativity. I was terribly frustrated to observe such a gap between my feelings and my expression. I felt unworthy, incapable, and without talent or possibility. After two years of trying I gave up painting, I thought forever.A year later I was lucky enough to experience what I call the second alternative. I was thrilled. I could not believe the expression of my creativity was so close to me. I became impassioned; I painted from six to twelve hours a day for years. A volcano was erupting from my being, and I was delighted to really feel and release the pressure within me. I realized that my concepts about beauty and art on the one hand and my desire for approval on the other were preventing me from expressing myself. So for a long time I didn't show my work. I wanted to protect my freedom to paint ugly, absurd, fantastic, dull, childish paintings - the freedom to do anything I felt like doing. I saw that when I stopped putting any idea of achievement in the painting, the colors and forms came to me in a very natural way. It was like something being born. At that time I did not want to look back on my paintings; I had to forget what I had done to have greater freedom to go on. I discovered that what is important for me when I paint is the process, not the painting. The value of the painting is the value of the process I go through.