Steve Hackett Quotes

Well, I don't think anyone now would say that they're painting the state of the culture of America. I think that's too grand and pompous a thing for anybody to claim.

Pop Art looks out into the world. It doesn't look like a painting of something, it looks like the thing itself.

I don't know if it's a movement, but the only thing new that's happening is that I think music and art and video and fashion are all kind of thrown into one big ball that's on television, and people see that all the time - you see a fusion of all those things.

Once you 'got' Pop, you could never see a sign again the same way again. And once you thought Pop, you could never see America the same way again.

I always thought that one of the reasons why a painter likes especially to have other painters look at his or her work is the shared experience of having pushed paint around.

I think people respond to truth. 'Straight Outta Compton' made $60 million over the weekend, right? That's not just a black audience. 'Empire' grew every single week. That's not just a black audience. Black culture is American culture, you know what I mean? They're becoming more and more one in the same.

We look at the Mona Lisa and say we're going to do our version of the Mona Lisa. We mirror it. But exaptation would say that painting the Mona Lisa would lead to a whole new place... Bugs Bunny.

I paint American people, and I tell American stories through the paintings I create.

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.

The key to understanding any people is in its art: its writing, painting, sculpture.

All my life I’ve pursued the perfect red. I can never get painters to mix it for me. It’s exactly as if I’d said, ‘I want rococo with a spot of Gothic in it and a bit of Buddhist temple’—they have no idea what I’m talking about. About the best red is to copy the color of a child’s cap in any Renaissance portrait.

Painters who are not colorists produce illumination, not painting.

I'm a painter, that's where I started out, at four years old, that was my first love as far as expression. So, I'm not a painter in the sense of, "Please come see my paintings" but, I do understand the value of not looking over the artist's shoulder while the work is in progress.

There is one thing on earth more terrible than English music, and that is English painting.

I find that it's a very odd thing to think of competition when you're talking about what I still think of as art. I don't think of competing with actors or filmmakers at all. You do compete, in a way, at the box office, but we're far enough apart when both films are coming out that I'm not concerned with that either.

I destroy the painting as soon as I can see what it is. When I can make out something in it, I destroy it because it's no longer coming from my unconscious.

Whenever I see a Frans Hals I feel like painting, but when I see a Rembrandt I feel like giving up!

Critic asks: 'And what, sir, is the subject matter of that painting?' - 'The subject matter, my dear good fellow, is the light.

My paintings are not meant to be tasted.

Painting stems from a sense of organisation, the sensed positions of contrasts. Not that it is about this.

The only good copies are those which make us see the absurdity of bad originals.

In general, my paintings are multifocal. You can't call it unfocused space, but not being fixed to a single focus is very much of our time.

There is a big difference between The Merchant of Venice and a photograph of two males of different races in an erotic pose on a marble table top.

What you do when you paint, you take a brush full of paint, get paint on the picture, and you have faith.

Elvis is everywhere. Elvis is everything. Elvis is everybody. Elvis is still The King.