Ellsworth Kelly Quotes

Art arises from sources other than logic." (p.32)

My paintings are not about what is seen. They are about what is known forever in the mind.

Well, painting is the one thing I do, that is just me. It's me and easels, and the pencils. And as long as I don't drool too much over the canvas, the colors come out pretty good. And it's a chance to express all that I've got inside, that I sometimes keep hidden. And I think that's why I paint big broad, wide open landscapes.

The defining function of the artist is to cherish consciousness.

You think about the beauty and what you want to transmit. If I think about designing, I can't design.

I try to construct a picture in which shapes, spaces, colors, form a set of unique relationships, independent of any subject matter. At the same time I try to capture and translate the excitement and emotion aroused in me by the impact with the original idea.

I believe in the imagination. What I cannot see is infinitely more important than what I can see.

There are two worlds we live in: a material world, bound by the laws of physics, and the world inside our mind, which is just as important.

I am interested in relating the things we see with the things we see with our eyes closed.

Imagination comes from yourself and can deceive you, but vision is a gift from outside yourself - like light striking on your closed eyelids and lifting them to see what's really there.

I'm very interested in the question of how we perceive something, how consciousness goes from one thing, like looking at you in your black hat to what it might mean to my imagination and how I would draw that or write that, how I would subjectify you? It's something that is endlessly interesting to me.

Artists are mystics rather than rationalists. They leap to conclusions that logic cannot reach.

Painting is an illusion, a piece of magic, so what you see is not what you see. I don't know what a painting is; who knows what sets off even the desire to paint? It might be things, thoughts, a memory, sensations, which have nothing to do directly with painting itself. They can come from anything and anywhere.

I try to paint what I have found and not what I look for. In art, intentions are of little importance.

Poetry, she thought, wasn't written to be analyzed; it was meant to inspire without reason, to touch without understanding.

Abstraction means getting away from a visual interpretation but nearer to an emotional one.

Intelligence is composed mostly of imagination, insight, things that have nothing to do with reason.

My songs emerge from my life, or wherever they do, unbidden and unplanned and completely on a schedule of their own.

Vision is the true creative rhythm.

I enjoy looking beyond the obvious and look at the stories happening all around me - you kind of formulate things in your mind and get excited about them.

You have to have conviction and completely question everything and anything you do. No matter how much you study, no matter how much you know, the side of your brain that has the smarts won't necessarily help you in making art.

Imagination disposes of everything; it creates beauty, justice, and happiness, which are everything in this world.

Imagination is the eye of the soul.

When I was younger, I had conversations with friends about wanting to create something different. Every young musician probably thinks that. But it's difficult to do, because there are only so many words, notes, melodies, songs. But as soon as I stopped thinking and started feeling, it worked. I didn't realize it till I was done.

The painter should paint not only what he has in front of him, but also what he sees inside himself.