Gerard Malanga Quotes

The ideas come afterwards, when the picture is finished.

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.

To be an artist means not to compute or count.

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.

No thesaurus can give you those words, no rhyming dictionary. They must happen out of you.

Art is not about thinking something up. It is the opposite - getting something down.

I don't know what the secret is when I am writing it - it really is a surprise to me.

If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing.

I'm experimental by nature... always exploring my creativity.

Now to consult the rules of composition before making a picture is a little like consulting the law of gravitation before going for a walk. Such rules and laws are deduced from the accomplished fact; they are the products of reflection.

I wasn't in the art world at all as a kid; I was just creative, and we were always doing arts and crafts.

I don't make judgments about my own work, and I don't analyze it; I just let it happen. That applies to everything I've done.

I love art so much because of curiosity. At the start of a painting, I know 10 percent of what the painting will be, and then I have to improvise the whole thing.

Even though people think I am more of a conceptual artist, I am actually very intuitive. For me, it is still a matter of allowing things to naturally rise to the top of my mental pile, and then I make them.

I'll do anything that sparks me. Sometimes I'll want to do something random with ballet, and then I'll want to be a hippie caterpillar in an animation film. Who knows what will come my way, but I'm going to try and put little hints into the universe, and hopefully they'll float on by.

People have talents that are different. Where does the creative flow come from - inside us or from a higher power? I don't ask any questions. I just write it down.

You can't slot a time and a space and think 'ok now it's time to sit and compose.' It just doesn't work like that for me.

I think creativity becomes really beautiful and magical when you allow it to do what it's needing you to do.

Sometimes you feel like you have to do research to make something, other times you know you don't feel it so much.

Inspiration cannot be willed, though it can be wooed.

Ideas are the old-age of art. Artists have to keep young; they must not think too much - thought is death, while art is life. Such was Emile's viewpoint.

The most important thing is to keep creating and following my inklings as they come into being and acting on them.

If I knew what the picture was going to be like I wouldn’t make it. It was almost like it was made already – the challenge is more about trying to make what you can’t think of.

Creativity is about play and a kind of willingness to go with your intuition. It's crucial to an artist. If you know where you are going and what you are going to do, why do it? I think I learned that from the artists, from my grandmother, from all the creative people I've spent time with over the years.

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.