I had already had a similar experience, several years ago, when I was daydreaming, holding a pencil in my hand, and waiting for the inspiration to write a poem. I was under twenty years of age, and I lived in a boarding school. I only understood the words I had written once the ink had dried. The final poem was fully coherent, had perfect rhythm and tone. This happened during a poetry class, and when I submitted it to my teacher, he returned it with the comment: "Of authentic inspiration."

Several years passed before a similar situation happened to me again. I later learned that these phenomena are called automatic writing, and that many artists use them in a more or less voluntary way. During my music lessons, I also learned that some composers claimed that they had little to do in composing certain pieces of music, except to write on paper what seemed to come to them from the heavens.

Concerning the composition of Kali Yuga, I can now say that during most of the time I worked on the painting, I had the incredible feeling that I was not the only one holding the paintbrush… In the beginning of this work, I did not know its theme, nor its goal, as in all cases of authentic, creative automatism. I remember a strong energy flowing through me. The closest comparison I can find is that I worked on this painting in very much the same way a fencing match is played: quick movements, precise lunges and much parrying. A real skirmish! I remember working all over the canvas, attacking it from all angles, tirelessly, until the theme finally emerged.

Why the strange name, Kali Yuga? From some readings about the Tantras and other Hindu philosophies, I knew that Kali represented the goddess of destruction. Not long after I completed this work, I showed it to a client, who said that the most appropriate name for it would be Kali Yuga, since in Hindu philosophy (and as we can also see in our present day reality), cycles of construction and destruction overlap, and according to the Hindu calendar, we are presently in the Kali Yuga period, named the "black age". Wars, cataclysms, disease; isn't this the reality of every day news?