Brice Marden Quotes
Western artists stand as humans looking at nature; Asian artists try to be in nature. You become one with nature rather than painting a portrait of it. That's a big shift.
When you're using a long brush, you have your arm at full length. Basically, it exaggerates the movement of your body. But I always start far away and end up really close.
A painting, you know, it's all dirty material. But it's about transformation. Taking that earth, that heavy earthen kind of thing, turning it into air and light.
Holding together a kind of tension. When you see a painting that's really good that's what it's doing.
I'm an abstract painter not just for myself, but because I really believe in abstraction.
Painters are amongst the priests - worker priests of the cult of man - searching to understand but never know.
I've always worn a hat when I work. I think it also comes from a picture of Rothko I saw with a painter's hat on.
I don't remember any dream. All I remember is waking up and feeling that there had been a change while I was sleeping.
When you're not smoking anymore, you don't have to carry around a pack of cigarettes, a lighter - all this paraphernalia. So you're liberated in a certain sense. It's the same with drinking.
I respect all artists, just some more than the others. Because it's something that really needs to be done.
Being an artist is very independent thinking, although there's always going to be a lot of doubt.
I consider myself lucky to have had wonderful teachers. They expose you to a lot and basically teach you how to paint. I think of my career as a series of lucky incidents.
You can't say I'm going to become a painter in the same way you say I'm going to become a dentist. Or maybe you can nowadays. But it's an endeavor.
I smoke pot when I work. I take a couple of tokes before I start. It just loosens you up.
I'm very much involved with Asian art and its theory and practice, mainly Chinese because that was quite sophisticated. I tend to look at that more than I look the Western.
