Rostam Batmanglij Quotes

The craft of painting has virtually disappeared. There is hardly anyone left who really possesses it. For evidence one has only to look at the painters of this century.

People can see you on TV sloshing paint around with big four-inch brushes, and I learned to talk to camera in a friendly voice, not talking down to people, just explaining what I was doing. People like Picasso, Van Gogh, and Rembrandt did not have a weekly TV programme where people could see them painting.

Both my parents were painters.

I couldn't have written things like 'Low' and 'Heroes,' those particular albums, if it hadn't have been for Berlin and the kind of atmosphere I felt there.

I've always had a certain fascination. It's basically paint what you know, and this is what I grew up with.

My father is a well known artist, Ted Dyer, who has been painting for many years. Our work is very different, but growing up surrounded by paintings, paints, easels and art books does have an effect.

I looked at Rembrandt and Superman, Matisse and Bugs Bunny, and began to make my own pictures.

I grew up with artists.

I've been working in sculpture and painting since 1920.

I would love to have been a painter in the tradition of the surrealist painters who I admire so much.

I'm probably much more influenced by film-makers and painters than I am by other songwriters or poets.

Everyone in my family is an artist. Both my parents are painters and my mom's an opera singer. I was never shown any other way to process life.

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.

You can go down the list of great artists and kind of understand that they are products of their environment. Whether it's U2 or Henry Rollins or myself or Johnny Lydon, they're gonna be products of their environment.

Art has this ability to allow you to connect back through history in the same way that biology does. I'm always looking for source material.

Art is a continuum.

And all of this, all these physical aspects of painting at that time excited me very much. You could do a picture in just black and white. I mean all the things, whether you're soliciting permission or not, do give you permission.

I paint. I love the visual arts.

I've dreamed landscapes for years, and my dreams play an enormous role in my work. In fact, when I first started doing landscapes I felt insecure about painting in this style, and the dreams were like positive omens for me, and I've done a few paintings that were exact replicas of images that came to me in dreams.

Shape and color are my two strong things. And by doing this, drawing plants has always led me into my paintings and my sculptures.

I had tried painting, mostly to give myself a greater appreciation of the craft and to inform how I looked at paintings. That led to collaging some of the work I had done on paper, and I found myself mixing in found pieces as well.

My first concern was to take care of my drawing. I did not have any knowledge in arts, especially Haitian arts, apart from the paintings I saw in my father's office.

Nature engenders the science of painting.

Within one hour of touching the brush to canvas for the first time, my students have a total, complete painting.

I try to not listen to all the girls I admire musically - like Nina Simone - just so I don't find myself imitating them, even if it's subconsciously.