Dominic Rouse

"Were it not for the pain to be found in the wider world I might not have sought sanctuary in the confinement of my own where I have discovered an endless supply of the raw materials needed to make the images I do. Work which displays most accurately the deepest recesses of the human soul will, by default, display some rather unpleasant aspects of it. It is not the duty of Art to be acceptable to polite society and wherever he goes, the artist will find himself a stranger as he is the only legitimate citizen of the world which he inhabits. His lone, dissenting voice is society's surest line of defence against its greatest enemy which is, of course, itself. Art is not made by men and women who are wise, but by those in search of wisdom and to search at all is wisdom enough. Knowledge of oneself is the most that we can know. And saying so to some means nothing; others it leaves nothing to be said."