Willem de Kooning Quotes

I never felt oppressed because of my gender. When I'm writing a poem or drawing, I'm not a female; I'm an artist.

I think Picasso is more feminine than Matisse.

The goal of art was the vital expression of self.

Every human is an artist. And this is the main art that we have: the creation of our story.

Every person, every artist makes his life an artwork.

I'm an artist who happens to be in drag. And I think that's why my drag is a little different.

I'm an artist who happens to be gay.

Art is feminine.

We do have to be a witness to our art.

Bleed me of art, and there won't be enough liquid left in me to spit! [Michelangelo Buonorotti]

Art furnishes us with eyes and hands and above all the good conscience to be able to turn ourselves into such a phenomenon.

Art is not the possession of the few who are recognized writers, painters, musicians; it is the authentic expression of any and all individuality.

A critic in my house sees some paintings. Greatly perturbed, he asks for my drawings. My drawings? Never! They are my letters, my secrets.

My life and art have not been separated. They have been together.

So far as I am concerned, poetry and every other art was, is, and forever will be strictly and distinctly a question of individuality.

Good or bad, the one thing I can say about my art is, if I can quote Sinatra, I did it my way.

I have a hard time thinking of men trying to sing my songs, because I think my perspective is definitely feminine.

All worthy work is open to interpretations the author did not intend. Art isn't your pet -- it's your kid. It grows up and talks back to you.

That's one thing that's always, like, been a difference between, like, the performing arts, and being a painter, you know. A painter does a painting, and he paints it, and that's it, you know. He has the joy of creating it, it hangs on a wall, and somebody buys it, and maybe somebody buys it again, or maybe nobody buys it and it sits up in a loft somewhere until he dies. But he never, you know, nobody ever, nobody ever said to Van Gogh, 'Paint a Starry Night again, man!' You know? He painted it and that was it.

Maybe my work looks a little crazy, a little insane, but I don't really see myself as a crazy artist or a shaman artist.

My first sense of myself was as an artist, a painter. I would see a Van Gogh painting and just love it, the more emotional and passionate the more it attracted me.

I think, for some artists, the fear of taking on a political identity stems from not wanting to be pigeonholed as political actor or a political musician. It becomes this thing where somehow your art can no longer exist on its own and be multifaceted.

I went to school in drag, in art school and my day was completely different because everybody thought I was a chick. You should see me as a chick. So I went as a girl, as like an experiment and it worked really well and everyone was really nice to me but I couldn't talk obviously... you know train conductors were really cool to me on my commute... HA! I looked hot as a chick!

The artist does not exist except as a personification, a figure of speech that represents the sum total of art itself. It is painting that is the genius of the painter, poetry of the poet, and a person is a creative artist to the extent that he participates in that genius.

Since art is the expression of beauty and beauty can be understood only in the form of the material elements of the true idea it contains, art has become almost uniquely feminine. Beauty is woman, and also art is woman.