Vision is a creation, it’s not a perception. And I experimented all the time because when I walk in the street with somebody and I ask the person “what is there?” many many people say, “a wall” or they say “a tree” …but they don’t see anything. If I walk with a friend of mine who is a painter, who has the most acute eye I know, to walk with him in the street is a treat. I mean it’s an adventure because he sees everything. He creates vision and he gives it to me. I think there is no reality… in fact. There is no reality. What you see will be different from your neighbour. So, who has the reality? There is no reality, absolutely. In vision there is no reality, I think it is a creation. That’s why some people see and some people don’t see. They listen to music and they don’t even like the noise it makes. I think people are like that with their eyes. They are not interested by what they see and they do not really understand it. They use it to not bump into something. This painter, the friend of mine, said “to paint is to see beyond.” I think, not only to paint, but to see is to see beyond.
—Hugues de Montalembert - in Black Sun 2005
