Ridley Scott Quotes

Painting is a lonely, mostly solitary act.

I seldom have my stuff up unless I'm testing it. If I'm worrying about a painting, I put it up and see if I detest it quickly or slowly. Otherwise I have things by other artists.

Sometimes I can see the whole painting from the outset in my mind's eye. But more often than not, that idea doesn't last the duration of the painting. Sometimes it comes out easy, just as I had envisaged. But that is reasonably rare.

There's no way to really mock up or simulate what I'm doing until I'm there. An exhibition for me is not a statement but an experiment.

I believe that the great painters with their intellect as master have attempted to force this unwilling medium of paint and canvas into a record of their emotions.

Remember that a painting - before it is a battle horse, a nude model, or some anecdote - is essentially a flat surface covered with colours assembled in a certain order.

I am like a folk painter. Paint and move ahead.

Because art as a pursuit, as a concept, as an ideal, constantly elevates one above the pragmatic, one is inclined to discuss art in heightened terminologies. For me, it is just what I do all day long.

Well, I have a very simple method of painting.

You can't make a perfect painting. We can see perfection in our minds. But we can't make a perfect painting.

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?

Painting is seen as picture making, the making of an art object, something that can stand on its own.

If I was painting a picture, I wouldn't want to take a picture of a single paint stroke. I'd rather show people what it looks like when it's done.

Color is a passion; painting is a passion.

I think of me being a painter eventually.

Writing plays, I've always felt a little like I'm guessing - less sure of what's good and what's not good. I think that's because it's not a complete work of art.

You always hope an audience will respond to something you've done, but there's no way of knowing whether or not they will.

I keep a steady supply of paintbrushes and canvases. I like to paint. I'm not some great artist.

We have our brush and colors - paint Paradise and in we go.

When I'm drawing, I'm drawing with the light, being completely open and creative. I can't draw in the evening. I need light and I need warmth if it is a summer thing, and I need cold if it is a winter collection. The good thing is that I have houses to go to whenever I'm working. I draw according to the place.

My primary thing is to make a painting, not necessarily to make a painting to sell for gazillions of dollars, but just to make a painting.

Around 1980, I went back to painting with a vengeance.

Everything I do, it's a bit painterly. I like being surrounded by objects, mostly on paper. I like the images. I like the painting. I like good photography. It's something that makes me an emotional connection, and I feel comfortable around it.

We are probably the only artists in the world who have a 2,000-page book on a work of art that doesn't exist. But in this way, these projects reveal their identity through this whole process. When I'm starting, I only have the slightest idea of how the work of art will exist.

When I'm painting the picture, I'm really painting a picture. I may have a flat-footed technique, or something like that, but still, to me, the thrill, or the meat of the thing, is the actual painting. I don't get any thrill out of laying it out.