James Turrell Quotes

I apprehend light - I make events that shape or contain light.

A picture must possess a real power to generate light and for a long time now I've been conscious of expressing myself through light or rather in light.

'Eclipse' is a concept piece, and its concept centers on 36 large light bulbs strung from above in a geometrical pattern and at different heights, some of them at times down below the dancers' chest level.

I wanted to deal with light directly rather than with paint.

The word "photography" can be interpreted as "writing with light" or "drawing with light." Some photographers are producing beautiful photographs by drawing with light.. Some other photographers are trying to tell something with their photographs. They are writing with light.

I visited Notre Dame at 11 in the morning and the sun was entering through the south rose window, it was so impressive. This is when architecture can be king and give people sensations, like music.

I like playing with light and shade. I like saying awful things in very pretty ways.

Art history is littered with work that involves light.

I found my first picture of Amanda Lepore online in fashion magazines. It was the most beautiful thing that I had ever seen in my life. I thought nothing could trump the perfection of that photograph.

I tried my hand at photography and worked with a studio for six months.

If you recognize a photograph by me, I'm a failure.

At my first exhibits, people were saying that's just a light on the wall.

Architecture is about experience: not only visual but also what you can touch, what you can feel.

I think photography has made us see the landscape in a very dull way - that's one of its effects. It's not spatial.

Yes, I sold buttons to earn living. But I took pictures to keep on living. Pictures are my life – as necessary as eating or breathing.

The history of architecture is the history of the struggle for light.

From the moment that photography appeared, the descriptive genre began to invade Letters... In verse as in prose the décor and exterior aspects of life took an almost excessive place.

I always think of shade as being full of light. That is why I like to use the word shade rather than light and shadow. Shade seems to play over the thing, envelop it, better define it, while shadow seems to fall on the thing and stain the surface with darks.

I'm known as a light artist. But rather than be someone who depicted light, or painted light in some way, I wanted to have the work be light.

Photography is Art and Art is Photography.

For me, the creation of a photograph is experienced as a heightened emotional response, most akin to poetry and music, each image the culmination of a compelling impulse I cannot deny. Whether working with a human figure or a still life, I am deeply aware of my spiritual connection with it. In my life, as in my work, I am motivated by a great yearning for balance and harmony beyond the realm of human experience, reaching for the essence of oneness with the Universe.

I sense Light as the giver of all presences, and material as spent Light. What is made by Light casts a shadow, and the shadow belongs to Light.

I consider space to be a material. The articulation of space has come to take precedence over other concerns. I attempt to use sculptural form to make space distinct.

The fascinating thing, is not to show the source of light, but the effect of light.

Even with painting, even abstract paintings, you need the incoming of, light on the canvas.