Marlene Dumas Quotes

There is no beauty, if it doesn't show some of the terribleness of life.

No painting can exist without the tension of what it figures and what it concretely consists of. The pleasure of what it could mean and the pain of what it's not.

My best works are erotic displays of mental confusions.. with intrusions of irrelevant information.

I do think that I'm not good at making pretty things. It doesn't come so naturally for me.

Drawings are only a few lines on paper. Therefore it's easy to carry around in plastic bags. Drawings are cheaper than paintings. They don't pretend they'll last forever.

At the moment my art is situated between the pornographic tendency to reveal everything and the erotic inclination to hide what it's all about.

I moved to Holland because I wanted to see American art.

There are these painterly things that happen while I'm working.

I'm always so sick of myself after a show.

I have always been interested in how you can depict suffering without being heavy-handed.

I never learned to ride a bicycle, and it is too late now. I never learned to drive. I never learned to swim.

I think I am probably a lot like my father.