Willem de Kooning Quotes

I love to create, and to me, the ultimate freedom of expression is a blank canvas or a block of clay to capture whatever emotions your imagination gives it.

Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.

Painting seems like some kind of peculiar miracle that I need to have again and again.

When you're not hearing my voice, I'm working on art. So if you're not hearing me, I'm working for the people and getting inspired.

I like a canvas to breathe and be alive. Be alive is the point. And, as the limitations are something called pigment and canvas, let's see if I can do it.

The only thing one can give an artist is leisure in which to work. To give an artist leisure is actually to take part in his creation.

It doesn't matter what it is, it doesn't matter if you have training or a background in it. Just create something, and lend a piece of yourself to that art.

When I stand before a canvas, I never know what I'll do, and I am the first one surprised at what comes out.

Artists need to express.

Artwork is not like a commercial business; there is no such thing as a schedule for art. You can't hurry art.

The creative act amazes me. Whether it's poetry, whether it's music, it's an amazing process, and it has something to do with bringing forth the old out into the world to create and to bring forth that which will rejuvenate.

I never know what I'm going to put on the canvas. The canvas paints itself. I'm just the middleman.

Make good art.

I think the idea of art kills creativity.

A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.

Art requires neither complaisance nor politeness; nothing but faith, faith and freedom.

Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.

Using gunpowder as a medium became a way to liberate myself.

That's what I love more than anything, just creating.

Every work of art is a great promise of escape and, therefore, like an open invitation.

All this angst, all this stuff we all feel, is just tied to making art. It's so ancient.

Art is, after all, only a trace – like a footprint which shows that one has walked bravely and in great happiness.

Don't think about making art.

Art is not about objects of high monetary exchange. It's about reasserting our firsthand experience in present time.

You know a trillion times more about art than me. But I’ve learned that it isn’t necessary to know all that much. You just make what you wanna see, right? It’s a game, right? It’s like being paid for dreaming.