I'm a sucker for turquoise sea, white beaches and palm trees. I've been to the tropics every year since I could afford it. It's the perfect place to unwind. I can chill out, read, do a bit of yoga.
Drawing is the art of being able to leave an accurate record of the experience of what one isn't, of what one doesn't know. A great drawer is either confirming beautifully what is commonplace or probing authoritatively the unknown. ::: Brett Whiteley...
I thank you for your kind invitation to introduce me to the president of the Republic. Since I have not been out of my atelier for two months, I have no appropriate costume for this circumstance. Please excuse me.
You don't have to reinvent the wheel every day. Today you will do what you did yesterday, and tomorrow you will do what you did today. Eventually you will get somewhere.
I have no intention of flattering people. I like wrinkles and crow's feet and flaws, and somebody should know, if I'm going to photograph them, that's going to show up, you know?
In 1916 I was discharged from military service, or rather, given a sort of leave of absence on the understanding that I might be recalled within a few months. And so I was a free man, at least for a while.
In talking, shyness and timidity distort the very meaning of my words. I don't pretend to know anybody well. People are like shadows to me and I am like a shadow.
In Paris, I met a young American person who immediately became the primary inspiration which awakened my vision and the leading influence that had directed my forces. Throughout my career as an artist, I refer to this person by the word 'Woman.'
I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me - shapes and ideas so near to me - so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn't occurred to me to put them down.
I know now that most people are so closely concerned with themselves that they are not aware of their own individuality, I can see myself, and it has helped me to say what I want to say in paint.
To talk about paintings is not only difficult but perhaps pointless too. You can only express in words what words are capable of expressing-- what language can communicate. Painting has nothing to do with that.
I never did buy things on credit, I always paid for 'em, because I can't see much difference in paying for something and just waiting a week and pay interest on it; that looks foolish to me.
You know I was curious - I was interested in all kinds of mystery or deeper meanings in the paintings because I myself have not analyzed why they have turned out like this or like that.
Sometimes it works. Sometimes I feel like playing 'Hospital'. Sometimes I feel like playing 'Pablo Picasso'. I've been playing a lot lately. I do it as long as I feel like it.
I had always planned to make a large painting of the early spring, when the first leaves are at the bottom of the trees, and they seem to float in space in a wonderful way. But the arrival of spring can't be done in one picture.
But the moment you use an ordinary camera, you are not seeing the picture, remember, meaning, you had to remember what you've taken. Now you could see it of course, with a digital thing, but remember in 1982 you couldn't.
I can often tell when drawings are done from photographs, because you can tell what they miss out, what the camera misses out: usually weight and volume - there's a flatness to them.
Well, I don't think anyone now would say that they're painting the state of the culture of America. I think that's too grand and pompous a thing for anybody to claim.
When I'm not painting, I'm Oujia-boarding with my photos. I'll sort through my pictures, put them in different folders, and come back months later to one in particular and try to figure out why I took it.
So much of art-making is about reducing things to the essentials, so I don't feel particularly crippled by this. I don't want it to look natural because then I would be making a documentary film.
HOW DO YOU FIND THE RIGHT POSITION TO LIE DOWN WITH PEOPLE OR EVEN ANIMALS? OFTEN ONE OF THE PARTNERS IS SMOTHERED OR CONTORTED. WHEN DONE PROPERLY, THOUGH, EVERYONE IS HAPPY.
