Pearl Lam (林明珠): Hello, this is Pearl Lam Podcast. Today I’m not in Paris, but I am in France. I’m actually in Burgundy sitting here with Michal Korman. Actually, I just went to his studio and this morning I forgot I was doing a podcast. I thought I was having lunch with him and then I arrived. I see all my producer, my cameraman. So I quickly did my quick make up and here I am with my artist, Michal Korman. Michal, can you briefly to tell our followers, our viewers who, who you are.

Michal Korman: Thank you, Pearl. It’s always a pleasure having you here.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): I love your food.

Michal Korman: Yes, you love your. I hope you love my art. So I’m Slovak born, Paris based artist now French based artist. Because I moved my studio to Burgundy about six months ago. So we are about 120 kilometres outside of Paris and it’s a real countryside. I know that you are a city cat. So it’s always. Yeah, it’s always.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): I’m turning into a country pumpkin now.

Michal Korman: Yes. I hope that we succeeded, you know, to turn you to country pumpkin. And I’m very happy that, that I’m here with you today talking about the art because this is something we have got in common. Well, there are more things we got.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): I’m sitting here looking on these half, not, not half, majority blank painting. What are you Doing here, I saw some sketchy. But a painting like this, how long you need to finish it? Is this mine?

Michal Korman: This is yours.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Please look at it. This is mine.

Michal Korman: It’s, it’s, it’s. When it’s. When it’s done, it’s yours. When it’s too good, it’s mine. I keep it. No, I started about two weeks ago. Something. So this is, this is. The whole process is quite, it’s quite slow because I really paint with a tiny brush and every colour is like printing, basically. But what you are looking at here, it’s our garden. It’s right outside. So there is this, there is this water tank we have. We installed in our garden with the fountain. I actually sculpted that one this summer. And because we wanted the fountain in the garden, of course, without the water element, you know, you have to have a water element in your garden.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Feng shui as well. You need water,

Michal Korman: You need water. So I sculpted this. Antique Roman or Greek deity somehow. So the birded face, it’s, it’s, it’s. It’s a God of, of abundance and, and orchards and, and gardens. And I just took him actually from Soviet propaganda pictures. So I recomposed different Soviet propaganda pictures and I decided to put him there as an anonymous person. That looks rather like a little bit pathetic. You know, it, look, it. It looks a little bit like sacred. You know, you. You feel like it’s something you have to praise. And then there are flowers, because I love flowers and they’re displayed in a way they are in a garden, like, Like a sort of the botanical book. So there is one species at the time in the foreground and then another species little bit. A little bit taller and in the background. And so the whole background is going to be ivy because this is. We’ve got a wall, very long, 10 metre or 12-metre-long wall covered with ivy. It’s going to be yours. It’s going to travel to China. Is it going to travel to China?

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Of course. I like to put in my home. Let’s start from your very beginning. You’re born in Slovakia. At five years old, you started painting. Exactly how. Why? And you start drawing. Painting. Who start. You know. And who inspired you? What inspired you to paint?

Michal Korman: My mother states that I actually start drawing before I could actually walk. So it was. I was seven months old or something like that. She keep telling these stories to all my friends. Like seven months old. You already were holding the, the. The seven months old. Yeah. Pencil and you. Yeah. And you were drawing on the furniture and on the walls.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): And.

Michal Korman: And so it started like that and I think it always been there in, in some way. And then I just spent all my time doing that, you know, painting, doodling, drawing. And then my grandpa decided to take me to academical painter because there was one very famous in my hometown. And he said okay, let’s do something with this boy because his not good at running after the ball and he’s not good at sports. And he, he introduced me to this gentleman, and he immediately saw that there was something and he said okay, I can keep him. So I started my drawing and painting lessons when I was 5 with adults and older children, which was quite impressive to me.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): So let me ask you, do you breathe art? Do you live for art? What does art to you mean?

Michal Korman: Yeah, definitely. It’s, it’s everything. I, I dream about the art. The first thing

Pearl Lam (林明珠): , I think you only dream about your husband.

Michal Korman: Well, yeah, well, the dream come true this, this summer. We married this summer. So the dream come true.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Congratulations.

Michal Korman: But it’s like. Yeah, I, I dream about the art. The first thing I think of in the morning when I wake up is my next painting on the painting I’m work on.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): I mean when you see your painting, I remember the first time when I went to see your painting. Your painting is very happy and it looks like it is really graphic orientated. Right. Are you purposely doing in that style that you create works that people actually feel that is this a graphic design or is this real? Did you purposely do it in that way? And what, what is the reason, what is the behind thoughts about all that?

Michal Korman: All right, so yeah, it, with. With years it’s, it’s become a concept of course and my signature. But this style, I think I’ve developed it quite unconsciously because I love colouring books when I was a kid. So you got these very precise shapes and you have to fill them with colour. And I was obsessed with colouring book. I, I had like all the Disney character colouring books. Everything there was on the market, I had them. And I just spent hours and hours filling the blank spaces with colour. And I actually was thinking about it quite recently that this is how it, how it actually began because this is how I got involved with the graphic arts later. You know, when you conscious about what the art is, the differences of genders and, and, and, and media. So I was really into posters when I was, I can see I was a teenager and I was thinking about painting. As something that needs to get closer to what is called applied arts, you know.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Right.

Michal Korman: It’s been done, of course, in the history.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Obviously in your generation, there is no high art and low art.

Michal Korman: Exactly. No, I hate this hierarchy.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Because high art and low art is something that people has been talking about and practising. I, I think until recently that hierarchy is, you know, it’s like it is collapsing.

Michal Korman: Yeah, exactly. And I hope, I hope it’s going to completely crumble because, you know, even today, like you, you, you hear some people think like, oh, your art looks like illustration. And there still is this condescending, you know, something about, about the painting as a high form of illustration, as a, as a low form of art. But Botticelli was illustrating, you know, Dante’s Inferno. Right. And Bonnard made so many illustration and beautiful posters. And these are really people I admire in history of art. So I think the role of an artist is always to bring all the gen. I love ceramics, I love looking at it. I’m unable to, to, to, to make ceramics.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): I can invite you to mix ceramics.

Michal Korman: Okay, I, I gladly try it, but I, I, I like it because I, I think that the Chinese vase, beautiful Chinese vase, has to have as much estimation from the public as, as a painting, Western painting may have, you know, because it’s a form of art and it’s a very elevated form of art.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): I mean, when you are doing this sort of illustrative, graphic, thick sort of aesthetic art, you must be, you must suffer a lot of judgement.

Michal Korman: Yeah. The way was not easy. You know, the way through was not easy.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Because I think art world is full of judgement, Judgmental, but we need judgement. But depending on whether you’re strong enough to fight against judgement, to be yourself.

Michal Korman: But then you find in the history, when you look back at the history, you find people like Andy Warhol. I love Andy Warhol. Also because, you know, he’s sort of a, sort of a countryman because his, his parents were from what today Slovakia is, I thought.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): I thought he was from Poland.

Michal Korman: No, no, he, the, the, the, there is a museum in Slovakia dedicated to his work because his parents were, but it used to be the Austrian Hungarian Empire or whatever. It was a different country, but it happens to be Slovakia today. And so there is something very similar because we’ve got these icons, you know, it’s very religious. When you look at what he did with all the famous people, the stars, the actors, the singers, it’s very iconic. It’s like Russian icons. It’s exactly the same thing. And you produce the same image with a difference in colour, but very tiny, but the icon is still there. You know, the face doesn’t change. And this was something very important to me. And when I learned about his personal history, how much he was struggling because he came from illustration.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Yeah, he was doing advertisement.

Michal Korman: Yeah, he was doing advertisement. I love advertisement. And he was coming from there and he was actually asking people around him, what should I paint to please you? It’s very customer oriented, state of mind. And I really like that because he says that I want to show you what you are about. You know?

Pearl Lam (林明珠): You know what?

Michal Korman: I don’t want to impose. I want to show you what you are about. I like that.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): One day I’m gonna challenge you. I’m making. I will commission you to do a black and white painting.

Michal Korman: Okay.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Okay.

Michal Korman: I’m going to disappoint you because I did.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): I love it.

Michal Korman: I did bunch of them.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Really?

Michal Korman: Yes. I still have got one.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Really? I want to see because all I can see is colours. And I come to your house, your kitchen is colours. What happen if you turn black and white?

Michal Korman: It’s sad. I made some black and white. To me it’s sad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. To me it’s sad. And unless you know, you, you, you put it in context. I mean, when you got a very beautiful, colourful room with the wallpaper, baroque or something, very wild wallpaper, then the black and white painting is. It’s really nice. I wouldn’t use a black colour anymore. Even if I need to paint with dark colour. I will mix purple. Yeah. Purple. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): So what does art for you actually means? Okay, today you’re a professional artist, right? You make your living and on art, so. But. What does it reflect? Does it reflect your life? I know that when you started going out with your husband, now you were painting him. So. So your artwork is reflecting your life. Your artwork is reflecting your heart. What is art for you?

Michal Korman: There always needs to be a connection between the subject I paint and my life. Because I need this kind of relationship. I spend a lot of time in front of the blank canvas because of the technique, you know, so it takes me months and you have to develop this relationship. I cannot paint something I don’t like. To me, my art, let’s put it that way, is about. Putting a part of myself out there in front of the people in a way I like to. I would love to see it myself. You know, it’s. It’s a sort of social media, you know, we always put on Instagrams the life we would love to have.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): You know, I thought you show in Instagram the life that you are experiencing.

Michal Korman: Swimming pool pictures, holiday pictures, you know, you have got 20 of those. But how many, how many I wash my dishes pictures you have on your Instagram, Nobody cares about that. Yeah, right. So everybody wants to put out there the life they would dream of. You know, the holiday, the pleasant side of the life. And, and this is, I think the painting is the same thing to me. You know, the painters, when, when, when, when they are painting a subject, they’re picking the subject up because they want to say something, but they want to affect the viewer.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): What are your paintings saying? Saying about yourself, saying about your life. Does expressionism constitute in and in your work?

Michal Korman: Yes, yes, I’m very influenced by expressionism and symbolism. I love looking at those guys. Yeah, I love looking at those guys. But because they were trying to show you the world they experience so you can relate to it. Because everybody has got state of mind. Everybody. You know, I paint a lot of still lives. I paint a lot of gardens, I paint flowers. And everybody feels happy when they see a flower. I, I don’t know many people who feel sad when you. They see a flower and they say, oh, I. I don’t want to see such things.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): You know, actually what I like about your paintings, the composition.

Michal Korman: Mathematics.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Yeah. How you put one thing, juxtapose on the other things, and those are not actually, not still life, those is in your imagination.

Michal Korman: Yeah.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): I think that for me is splendid. Because usually when you talk about composition and all that, you usually has to display something because the way you do it is complicated as well. It’s not something that without displaying it, you can, you know, like what you did on the Soul Kitchen with all the things on the table. My first thought was thinking that you must have displayed everything there before you painted.

Michal Korman: No,

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Because for your imagination to put everything together, I thought that was. That. That is ingenious. Because it’s not just anything that you paint from still life.

Michal Korman: No, it’s. It’s mathematics. I pick up the objects I want to represent. So this is the symbolic side of the paintings. Because I want to say something through objects I put in my paintings and through colour. And then the, the expressive thing is how you, how you put it all together chromatically, so the contrast, the harmonies and so on. But when I, when I look at the blank canvas, there is a mathematical image of everything, you know, like it needs geometry, very precise geometry. And then I start to fill the space with different objects, different patterns, flat surfaces and surfaces with motif or adornments. Yeah. So this is, this is what I do most of the time.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Yeah. Because I thought that was for me is pretty ingenious because to do all that mixture of different objects and, and everything usually you really have to put things together.

Michal Korman: This is why I say I need to. To be in a relationship with objects or subjects I paint. Because all the objects I put on the canvas, they don’t come from my mind, you know, they are. They. They are real objects in my possessions or, or people’s possessions when I, when I paint for customers. And so I need to look at it. Customers, clients, clients, clients. When I paid for. For. For clients. So the thing is I have to be be friendly with object. I look from different angles and I’m thinking about am I going to use it, how I’m going to use it. And the good thing, of course it’s complicated when you don’t have a still life in front of you. But the good thing is that I was lucky enough to get befriended with Oriental art.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): I mean Chinese way of painting is we never have perspective. It is a multi focus on different.

Michal Korman: Yeah, yeah. And so you can work also what is important in a painting, what you want to put forward, what you want to put in the background. What is more decorative, what is here to serve chromatical purposes and what is here to serve mathematical purposes within the composition. And this is so clever. So when you observe Chinese painting, Persian miniatures and this kind of Oriental art, you just realise how very accurate actually they are. But they are accurate in a study of each object separately and that they are put together very freely so they can be a masterpiece because they actually invite you to spend time going through the painting, you know.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Okay, so what is your relationship with conceptual art?

Michal Korman: With conceptual.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Because you know, conceptual art is what today we call about contemporary art. So what is your relationship with conceptual art?

Michal Korman: I like the experience part of the conceptual art performances and. And stuff like that. So I like that part. But I think that also painting or graphic art, they can be conceptual in a way if they.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): So what is the concept?

Michal Korman: The concept is to spending time. Spending time and feel how the time is passing because you find yourself outside of the time when you look at the painting. Not, not everybody realises how much time you spend actually in front of the painting when you really go deep into it.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Yes, of course.

Michal Korman: When you paint you and then suddenly.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): You have to be connected.

Michal Korman: Yeah. And when you are having these dialogues, suddenly the time flies. So you are outside of the real, real time, right? The time around you. But then there’s a different time, like this Proustian time, you know, when you read a very long sentence and you still think, okay, it took me three minutes, but it, it has taken you 15 in reality. So this is, this is what I like. This is what the concept is. In my painting, actually, that I want people to look for object, trying to identify them, trying to connect with those object, question them. Where does it come from? Why is it here? So they spend time with art. Because spending the time in front of the painting, for me, is the most important. Personally, you know, in the world.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Okay, because today when we talk about conceptual art, we talk about politics, we talk about the social conditions, we talk about philosophy, we talk about whatever. So if we are using that perspective of conceptual art, are you denying it or are you compromising with it?

Michal Korman: I am not a political artist. I do not comment any. Whatever happens in the world in my painting in a direct way, when I decide to put a book about an artist in my composition, that to me is a sufficient, you know, commentary or statement about what I think and what I want people to question in the art. You know, I don’t want to tell them you have to think this way or this is good or this is bad. I just put it there. You pose a question and they have to question it. Okay, do I see it in a good way or bad way? Is it here as a criticism or is it here as a compliment? So it’s more, you know, they are more connected with what you, what you do. Because I don’t want to shout on people, my opinions about, about the life. I, I really don’t like that. And I, I, I don’t feel related to that kind of art even.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Because today most of these very successful artists, they’re all very politically driven. Yes, right.

Michal Korman: Yes.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Because they become a commentary about a society. On the second underlying is the, is about philosophy. But yours is just you.

Michal Korman: Yeah, and you pointed it out, you said that the paintings look very happy. It’s all about the happiness. But happiness is a psychological state of mind. So I’m more interested in psychology than in politics. Because your inner life, what you hold within, it’s far more important than what happens around you.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Since I see your art, your pieces of artwork makes me think about graphic design, makes me think about illustration, magazine printing. Don’t you think that it’s easier just to use a software, just to have AI to do It.

Michal Korman: Oh, it’s much easier. Of course it’s much easier.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): So why are you doing it? Why do we want your art if we can get it from AI?

Michal Korman: So why I. I return you the question. Why would a haute couture people, you know, sew beautiful garments by hand?

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Yeah.

Michal Korman: If a machine can do it, you know, I love people who make things with their hands. It’s very important to me because you are connected with the material and I want to be connected with the material. And actually a friend of mine pointed it out three or four years ago. I told her, you know, I do these flat things and I like, I really enjoy doing these flat things. Why do I do it? Why am I attracted to this? And she said, well, Windows 95 Paint. You want to compete with the computer when you were. I said, exactly. I spent so many hours trying to paint on a computer, and it was just so bad.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): At that time, the software was not as good.

Michal Korman: It was not as good. So I got stuck in this time machine, you know, like about 30 years ago. And I still want to do this paint Windows 95 thing, but doing it with my hands. So it would be easier, of course, to use AI to produce these images. But then there’s a very selfish thing to it. I love spending time in front of.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): My painting because I tell you, I did see a lot of painters, especially in all over the world, I mean in China, all over the world, what they do is they first they made the whole composition in a computer and then they use the computer images and then they copy onto the canvas. That’s what they usually do. But for you is you just give a blank canvas. Look at this. I just paint on this. And everything is based on your imagination.

Michal Korman: Yeah.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Which is really amazing because I always said that with AI coming the craft that you can paint.

Michal Korman: Yeah, the craft and the skin.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): In 10 years time, twenty years time, all this will be celebrated because we are so. Lack of this. Because some of most of the art school today, they don’t necessarily teach you how to paint.

Michal Korman: They teach concepts. They teach concepts. You have to be very good at describing what you would love to do without necessarily doing it. So this, this is my opinion about, about many of these art schools. But what I, what I really like, as you said, yeah, the craft, the skill that you have to spend time, you have to fail. This is, this is what is important. But it’s not just the making process, it also the thinking process. Because the thinking process is as important as the what you put out there doing. You know, this painting, they have to exist in my brain before I put them on the canvas because I cannot correct things on the canvas and I want the colours to be very vivid so I never over, like over, over layer or overlap them. And so the whole painting has to somehow exist on my, on my canvas before, before I start putting colour on.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Sometimes the paintings that I, I really resonate is you take some Chinese motif and the other ones, you take some Japanese motif.

Michal Korman: Yeah, I do that.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Why are you so enticed to all these Japanese and Chinese culture?

Michal Korman: And I am very fond of Eastern arts and Eastern crafts because in terms of decorative arts, let’s put it that way, they’re the best. They’re very codified, but at the same time very free in expression. And they put colours together in a completely different manner than the Western art would since. Da Vinci until 19th century art, which. Everything was brown. Yeah, with a little bit of red or with a bit of blue. You know, it boring, boring, boring, boring art. So I love Eastern art for that. The use of colour, the vibrant. Yeah, yeah, the vibrant. And also the use of mathematics is a different use of mathematics. It’s not about the square and the, and, and the, and the circle. Not just. It goes, you know, further than that, it’s about algebra, it’s about, it’s, it’s about rational numbers. So the geometry, the composition is completely different because when you analyse Rubens’s painting, you know, it’s all, it’s curved this way. Curved that went square here and that’s it 340 times in every painting. And, and Eastern art, it’s something completely different. It gives me book.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): We don’t, we don’t have a formula as such.

Michal Korman: No, no, there is, there is no such formula.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): So you are very multifocus. You just put.

Michal Korman: Yeah, yeah, this is genius.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): And, but, but, but, but for Chinese art, or the basic, the Asian China aesthetic is also very different from the west is we never use paint painted over the whole part of the canvas.

Michal Korman: Blank is important.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Because of Daoism, you seek the balance and harmony between the painted area and the non painted area. So you always leaving the white. But you don’t have that.

Michal Korman: No, I don’t have. Well, even if I have white, it’s going to be painted. There’s a paint. It’s, it’s, it. There never is a white space. I find this, this balance between flat surfaces without any adornment on it and then the one with motifs. So it’s. I like the fact that I take a bit of a codified element in. In. In Japanese or Chinese decoration and then I put it as a bush outside. You know, I just cover the bush with some. With some beautiful, beautiful motif from China or from Japan or for. For India or whatever. And. And the bush is. You know, just a representation of a mental state somehow. So this is, this is why I. I like these two connections. Like inside.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): When did you first visit Asia?

Michal Korman: First time. I was 22. Japan. 23. I was 23 years old.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Japan. So you were very taken by Japan?

Michal Korman: Yes, very taken. Actually. Actually, the first country I really visited was China because I stayed three days in Shanghai as a layover and then I continued to Japan because I was just fascinated by. I saw a documentary about Shanghai being the richest city in 1930s and all these beautiful buildings and Art deco.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): No, that’s Shanghai Deco.

Michal Korman: Yeah, Shanghai Deco and all this stuff. And many Czechoslovakian architect worked in. In Shanghai. I didn’t even know. So I was. I was very interested by. By that merge of Western and Eastern, you know, aesthetics and, and I was very taken by it. And then I just keep going every, every other year to Japan, every other year to India, stopping every time in China on my way to Japan. Very interesting.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Is this the differences that you are interested that you brought into some of your artworks?

Michal Korman: Yeah, yeah, but it’s, it’s, it’s the differences, but at the same thing, the similarities. Because I think that there, the communication between east, west has always been, you know, west is always influenced by east.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): West does not believe that they’re influenced by the east.

Michal Korman: You know, I’ve got a friend, philosopher, and she told me every religion, religion, they move from east to West. Always. Christianity is coming from Middle east to Europe.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): True, true.

Michal Korman: You know.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): Yes.

Michal Korman: And then like the. India is the. The middle point and then from India it moves to the East. Yeah, Buddhism. So. So to us, you know, the religion is coming from the East. Everything is coming from the East. The silk is coming from the East. This is the. What we praise the most, the blue colour, the most expensive colour in Middle Ages, coming from Afghanistan, you know, so everything we praise really in the west comes from the East. And I like that idea, but people are not really aware of it because of chauvinism. So I wanted to go, you know, and to rewind some in some way, this story of how Eastern art influences the Western art and they’ve always been influences. You look at the Turkish carpets in. In all the best, all the best Vermeers, they are always Turkish carpets. And they are so brilliantly painted. He paid more attention to a Turkish carpet than the faces of people at the end of the day.

Pearl Lam (林明珠): I love you, my Michal, because you celebrate Eastern culture and the Chinese culture. The Chinese will love you for the Eastern culture. And at this point, I want to thank you for a very nice podcast, talking to you and having you to talk about your works and not really your childhood, but I know now you’re a child artist, you’ve been abused to do hard child labour. Anyway, thank you.

Michal Korman: Thank you, Pearl. Thank you.