Lucien Smith Quotes

I wanted to be a painter, somewhere between Abstract Expressionism and Pop.

I try to apply colors like words that shape poems, like notes that shape music.

Matisse was my God. I'm a French artist, that's for sure. I am color-oriented and what you might call a composer. I am not pouring my guts out; I keep them inside.

Color possesses me. I don't have to pursue it. It will possess me always, I know it. That is the meaning of this happy hour: Color and I are one. I am a painter.

My process is really quite organic, and starting a painting is one of the best parts for me. I always start in quite a loose and free way. I often put down one ground colour to begin with and then play off that.

It's the idea of a multi-sensory experience stemming from music that opened my interest into painting, to be honest.

Being creative is my idea of heaven. I'm just incredibly fortunate that I can do it in artwork. Watercolor is what I started out with. What I love about watercolor is that a lot of happy accidents occur.

In this movement of colors I find the essence, which does not arise from a system, or an a priori theory.

I'm thinking about color all the time. Sometimes even as far back as the plotting sequence.

I'm very interested in how visual artists think because I think the way that I think about music is similar. I'm very inspired by aesthetics and space.

All I care about these days is painting — photography has never been more than a way into painting, a sort of instant drawing.

I get my inspiration from books, pictures, art. I might find a vintage scarf and say, "I think this should be our color palette."

When I am working a book, I go through my library and take a look through some of the great cartoonists of the past, like Cliff Sterrett, who did "Polly and Her Pals," or Winsor McCay who did "A Little Nemo in Slumberland," and Herriman - and I just looked through these guys and looked for somebody to steal. You know, looked for who I could swipe, or turn into - who's work I will turn into my work. And I still use, after all these years, these artists as inspirations. So, here in my eighties, I go back to when I was eight for my inspiration.

It present to allow me to ask myself questions about what I'm doing. I think that's what visual art does - it either reminds you of something or allows you to question something. I don't know why Robert Motherwell; I love so many different artists.

I do sculpting sometimes when I have the time, and the first thing I sculpted was a bust of [Albert] Einstein. It still sits on my table and still inspires me. He was a person who triggered my imagination and my ideas.

The things I felt... about certain painters of the past that... inspired me, like Cezanne and Manet... that complete losing of oneself in the work to such an extent that the work itself... felt as if a living organism was posited there on the canvas, on this surface... That's truly... the act of creation.

I had to find a way to paint abstractly, which is what I wanted to do. I couldn't forget Wassily Kandinsky and Kazimir Malevich and Piet Mondrian, I mean that was the basis.

Art is the perpetual motion of illusion. The highest purpose of art is to inspire. What else can you do? What else can you do for any one but inspire them?

The painter's only solid ground is the palette and colors, but as soon as the colors achieve an illusion, they are no longer judged.

Usually when I start to work and to prepare the movie, some inspirations, different kind of human beings, it can be someone I know, someone I don't, a girl, a boy. So usually when I start, quite right away, some inspirations come.

And every good artist knows that the gift comes from somewhere else, and it's there for a reason, and that's to make the world a better place.

I think that artists don't make art - the art makes itself through us. I'm not the doer. I'm just along for the ride. Acting really reminds me of that because I don't write the words; I don't make the decisions. That's the director. Narcissism is a tragic condition. It must be so miserable to live trapped in a reflection that only includes the smallest version of our identities. Our true identities should have no bounds and no limits.

I did end up becoming a drawer, a sketcher and a painter because of comic books, but I didn't read them. Not at all.

Never read bad stuff if you're an artist; it will impair your own game. I don't know if you ever played competitive tennis, but you learn not to watch bad tennis; it messes up your game. Art's the same way.

The flat sound of my wooden clogs on the cobblestones, deep, hollow and powerful, is the note I seek in my painting.