Steven Soderbergh Quotes

An artist is a dreamer consenting to dream of the actual world.

That's what art is. You don't make up stories. You live your life.

I've done an incredible amount of painters. It's an area, for me, where there's more mystery left. I've photographed so many musicians, I've been in studios so often, I know the whole process. The mystery's gone from it. I think it's important to keep mystery into our lives. There's a longing connected with it.

Art is not about thinking something up. It is the opposite - getting something down.

Art, of course, is a way of thinking, a way of mining reality.

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.

People get inspired to write, paint, draw, sing, sculpt, dance in many different ways. And there are many types of art. But the one thing that they all have in common is that they are all a sort of magic. Sometimes the magic flows from one’s fingers, other times it is transferred to the person who experiences the result. Magic has always worked in mysterious ways.

When I see people making 'abstract' painting, I think it's just a dialogue and a dialogue isn't enough. That is to say, there is you painting and this canvas. I think there has to be a third thing; it has to be a trialogue.

Art is a little bit larger than life - it's an exhalation of life and I think you probably need a little touch of madness.

Take a step, breathe in the world, give it out again in story, poem, song, art.

Art is both creation and recreation.

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 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'm interested in art, and I think about the process of making art. It's part of my personality, my experience of the world, so it ends up in the movies. It's where my head is.

Painting is more important than art.

I love audio books, and when I paint I'm always listening to a book. I find that my imagination really takes flight in the painting process when I'm listening to audio books.

It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process.

Painting is the passage from the chaos of the emotions to the order of the possible.

For the artist, drawing is discovery. And that is not just a slick phrase; it is quite literally true.

Art doesn't transform. It just plain forms.

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

For me, drawing is a way of navigating the imagination, and it remains the fundamental vehicle of my practice. Drawing allows me to be at my most inventive.

I spend a lot of time working as a painter and in my studio I go from upstairs where I paint to downstairs where I play and record, so I get this thing crossing over.

I try and make little stories. Whether it's with a pencil or with bits of records, it's really the same thing.

Making art is different for everyone.