James Rosenquist

"Paintings are memories. Memories of the painter who painted them. Memories that can be shared as well. Paintings are things to remember things by."

"In many ways my paintings are about energy — both in how they are created and the image itself."

"It fascinates me to create beautiful paintings with the simplest means."

"From early on I developed an attraction for the incongruous. I had no wish to try to resolve visual contradictions. I felt that aesthetic disparities were actually questions, questions that I did not need to answer. By leaving the meaning up in the air I could provoke responses in the viewer that would trigger further questioning. What are these things I'm looking at and what do they mean? Each person seeing the painting will come away with a different idea."