Matthew Lawrence Quotes

Making art is different for everyone.

I don't see myself as a photographer. I still see the photographs and collages as a resource for the painting.

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.

Becoming an artist does not merely mean learning something, acquiring professional techniques and methods. Indeed, as someone has said, in order to write well you have to forget the grammar.

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

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

I believe that the great painters with their intellect as master have attempted to force this unwilling medium of paint and canvas into a record of their emotions.

Remember that a painting - before it is a battle horse, a nude model, or some anecdote - is essentially a flat surface covered with colours assembled in a certain order.

Filmmakers are going to make films, just like painters are going to paint.

It doesn't make much difference how the paint is put on as long as something has been said. Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement.

The minute there's a map, there is no art. Paint by numbers is not art. Paint by numbers is a mechanical activity.

Well, I am not interested in the kind of expression that you have when you paint a painting with brush strokes. It's all right, but it's already done and I want to do something new.

I don't think there is too much art involved in what I do.

I paint on the ground. I paint with sticks, with big paint cans, and whatever else falls in it. Basically, what I'm doing is capturing unbridled emotion and putting it on canvas. It's like capturing lightning in a bottle.

The things that I paint are things that I know very well.

I don't even think about maintaining a relevance. I just think about what do I want to paint, what am I gonna do now, what am I gonna do later.

I went to art college. I like to be creative. I use food as my medium at the moment but it could easily be illustrations in the future, or something else.

I suppose I consider my work a kind of picture making.

Yes, I'm very expressive with my painting.

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.

If a work of art is to explore new environments, it is not to be regarded as a blueprint but rather as a form of action-painting.

... a canvas that I have covered is worth more than a blank canvas. My pretensions go no further; that is my right to paint, my reason for painting.

I think half the point of painting a picture is that you don't know what will happen... that if painters did know what was going to happen they wouldn't bother to do it.

This beginning with Audacity, or being thrown into the middle of it, is already a very great part of the art of painting.

Painting is similar to music. You get a couple or words or notes or chords that excite you, and you just follow them and add a bit more and see where it takes you. That's the thrill for me. It still is a thrill, which is amazing after all this time.