Howard Hodgkin Quotes

Like all artists, I go through creative spurts.

What an artist learns matters little. What he himself discovers has a real worth for him, and gives him the necessary incitement to work.

In my experience a painting is not made with colors and paint at all. I don't know what a painting is; who knows what sets off even the desire to paint?

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

You cannot possibly invent painting all by yourself.

The part of the process that's exciting to me is feeling like I'm in a place I've never been before, in every way. Without that, I don't know if I'd be a writer.

Art is not the kind of thing where you get what you put into it all the time. So I learned to not expect anything other than the sort of joy of having a poem in front of me.

We're all inspired by what has come before us, but hope to use the inspiration to create our own. That's the artist's journey. It's a pretty amazing path.

The real artist's work is a surprise to himself.

You can't make either life or art, you have to work in the hole in between, which is undefined. That's what makes the adventure of painting.

Since age seven, I've been composing and have never stopped composing, yet, the creative process is as elusive to me as it has ever been.

For me, drawing is a question of death and life. Every day I draw, I write, I do something.

One of the most important reasons for living is to do something - live outside of yourself and put together an idea, an idea that you want to explore and then complete... Awaken your creative sensitivities!

Indeed, an engineer designing a structure is not unlike an artist painting one. Both start with nothing but talent, experience, and inspiration. The fresh piece of paper on the drawing board is as blank as the newly stretched piece of canvas.

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

What drives me is to still feel creative and like I'm pushing myself as an artist.

I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.

Each one seems to be, in some way, essentially different from the others, and each is a surprise to me. I think that making books, or any kind of art, might also be like mining. The artist digs into his or her life and imagination and never knows what they'll find. That's the adventure.

The creative act amazes me. Whether it's poetry, whether it's music, it's an amazing process, and it has something to do with bringing forth the old out into the world to create and to bring forth that which will rejuvenate.

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 never know what I'm going to put on the canvas. The canvas paints itself. I'm just the middleman.

Art revolves around creating something that isn't there.

The ultimate point of a piece for me is that it drives the next one. Does it open new doors? That's the success of a piece.

I think the idea of art kills creativity.

I search for surprise in my architecture. A work of art should cause the emotion of newness.