Painters From The United States

"I think that it can be said with certainty that the form which does emerge cannot be greater than the content which went into it. For form is only the manifestation, the shape of content."

"Nonconformity is the basic pre-condition of art, as it is the pre-condition of good thinking and therefore of growth and greatness in a people. The degree of nonconformity present-and tolerated-in a society might be looked upon as a symptom of its state of health."

"When I was a kid, I watched Tarzan movies. At that time the movies were black and white, and I wanted to put color in them. That was a big stimulus for me, and it made my imagination work."

"For me my works are like my children, and I love them all equally...I love all colors and every one of my paintings has something I like. It is like my children, each one of them has something I like, and although they all are wonderful and different gifts, I love them equally."

"I love diversity in Nature. I appreciate the difference in colors on people, animals, and flowers. My walks in Nature stimulate my mind, and make it easier for me to get ideas for my paintings. My imagination helps me to discover hidden images in nature, and I include them on my canvases. Those little ghosts frequently get enhanced as I paint, and they appear and disappear on my paintings."

"(What branch of art is the closest to Your heart?) Painting. Even though I’ve tried my hand at drawing and ceramic sculpture in different moments, the vast majority of my works are oil paintings."

"(What is Your inspiration?) My inspiration comes from many sources. Clearly, Mother Nature has always occupied an important position in this regard, which is tied up to my early experiences in Mexico. In addition, the patterns used in Mexican arts and crafts—ceramics, textiles, tiles, masks, etc.—also have been present in the development of my mental and artistic imaginary from the very beginning. Other elements that I can mention are indigenous myths and legends, the expressions of other artists from various cultures, iconic historical figures, and the works of poets and other writers, some of whom are my friends. Obviously, my surroundings are also a big source of inspiration, as my series of paintings on the Pacific Northwest clearly show."

"(Any advice for young artists beginning their professional life?) Work hard, find your own voice, and persevere."

"Art has always been in my life…As a young student in Mexico, I had no favorite artists. I was mostly impressed by the folk art in the Mexican markets. My grandma used to take me to the markets where I was fascinated by the native crafts. The designs and patterns on blankets, baskets, pottery, jewelry, and toys were my inspiration. Later on, I learned about the Mexican muralists that painted beautiful images on the walls of public buildings. Diego Rivera, Orozco, Tamayo, and others. Being born in Mexico has made my life richer, I feel fortunate to be able to speak the beautiful Spanish language, and I feel I came to the USA with a wonderful culture."

"The arts are a wonderful medicine for the soul."

"When I later came to the U.S., I was a foreigner. And I wasn’t part of Mexico, either. I didn’t feel like I fit in anywhere."

"We were poor, but we were happy. We didn’t have much, but we were painting."

"(What Art means to You?) Art is life. it is a vessel that allows me to express my perception of the world, my sense of beauty and my social concerns–which, I believe, are shared by many other persons around the world."

"Land is not simply a subject for Abbey, but a major fact of her life that she examines daily."

""Dance Eternal" demonstrates Abbey's excellence as a draftsman. Her line, always bold and rhythmic, is bursting with supple eloquence."

"We need to cherish, to listen to the wisdom of the “Ancients,” As they listen to us. Bristlecone Pines don’t decay...they erode like stone."

"Rita Deanin Abbey translates the wild gestures of action painting into compositions on large steel panels enameled with shiny porcelain. This technique solidifies the strokes and blobs of paint into parodies of themselves, much as Roy Lichtenstein's cartoony "Brushstroke" paintings took the rough edges off Abstract Expressionism."

"My energies have always gone into making art rather than promoting it."

"Arches National Monument is a place where I once lived, painting out of doors with a spectacular view of Mountain La Sal and the Arches. There were always furrows, storms, snakes, dinosaur bones, pot shards, new arches, rocks, the sun, pictorially real and other real adventures. I ventured over the old and new roads, trails, sensing and knowing new idioms and aims, exhilarated by my prospective Rivertrip- My intentions, not yet disclosed..."

"The trunks and limbs heavy with resin look polished, Smooth to a caressing touch or embrace, Stimulating feelings into the nature of things, Triggering thoughts of surface textures, of color-light, form and tension. Bristlecone Pines don’t decay...they erode like stone. Astonishing! Yellows, greys. Their scattered fragments, eternal spirit shapes, seem planted, Alive and whole with shadows and scents of pine."

"I already knew what I wanted to be at the age of seven, but there was no capacity for it here. But I was able to achieve my dream"

"We have animation studios in Africa, but I am yet to see anybody that can say I am an independent animation studio owner. We are trying to see that animations are well generated in Africa. We want a platform where young people can dialogue and be part of the game."

"Animation can be used to tell stories. My film, The Legacy of Rubies, which won Best Animation at AMAA, tells a story and to make these young ones know that they can do it too. All we need is the capacities to be established."

"It seemed my covers sold the magazines, and other publishers started to call. What it did was start me off in this direction of action, complexity, and telling a story. If you look at everything throughout my career, you’ll see that it’s all based on this early training. That’s what prepared me to do all sorts of genres later. The constant through my career is that I have enjoyed every minute of it."

"[What do you think about when you paint?] I don’t think about art; I don’t think about anything other than emotion. I don’t go up to a canvas and say this is what I’m going to paint; I just go up to a canvas and just start writing on it, drawing on it, and it just forms itself into something."

"Art with layers inspires me – not only physical paint layers, but layered conceptual meanings."

"I like my creations to be thought-provoking and not have a narrative. Creating mystery and questions are key elements in my work."

"In America today, perfection is highly valued. We dump loads of chemicals on our lawns to try and get rid of every weed, every dandelion. Models and supermodels are tall, impossibly fit, their clothes stylish and wrinkle-free. Images like this tend to change our perceptions, our ideals, until finally they leave us looking around at the peeling paint on our own houses, and our less than fit bodies, and it leaves us wanting. Perfection, I would submit, is overrated. And besides, I like dandelions. In the painting Sam assumes the role of presenter, host, even tutor, of this most revealing examination of the civilization man has made for himself. Sam is not society's accepted definition of perfection. In spite of that, or perhaps because of that, he really does have an important message for everyone to hear."

"The rise of the selfie is an especially big deal when considering how artists push away from it, a theme that unifies the past three winners. Each challenges the nature of subjectivity to move ultimately beyond the self to a more universal view of the subject, especially in relation to the artist and to the viewer and within the context of the history of portraiture. In 2006, David Lenz oil on linen portrait of his son, entitled Sam and the Perfect World depicts a child with Down Syndrome. For Lenz, this was the "most personal painting" he’d ever done. "It touches on all the various issues that challenge our family," he said. Without a hint of idealization or sentimentality, and without crossing the threshold into dramatizing the complex father-son relationship captured here, Sam is shown posed in front of a barbed wire fence. A bucolic country landscape with a pulsing sun reverberating in the pale blue sky proves the backdrop for a young boy wearing glasses and leaning toward the viewer with his brow slightly furrowed and his arms behind his back. Is he hiding something? Or trying to tell us something? There is something inscrutable and endearing about his expression that makes us want to spend time with him. In his red T-shirt and Oshkosh overalls he is in some ways a classic little boy. And yet he is not. As Lenz says, "Sam is the opposite of the idealized 'perfect" countryside. Nevertheless, I think he has something very important to say." Remniscent of Charles Willson Peale’s The Artist in His Museum (1822), Lenz has crafted a masterful composition with extraordinary technical skill."

"I’ll do good work, and I’ll get it done on time. Getting work done on time in the book business is as important as doing good art."

"I am best known for painting scary pictures, but I’m not into scary that much, yeah, that’s completely ironic."

"I put in hours and hours, and weeks, to create something that people are going to react to in three seconds, and they’re either going to like it, or they’re not going to like it, they won’t warm up to it, they won’t do anything, they’re going to have an immediate visceral response."

"People know my work, they know specifics about it, a lot of them know the history about it, as an artist that’s the coolest thing ever."

"I really tried very hard to not repeat color schemes, every one of the Goosebumps covers had its own set of colors. Different variations. I’m using the same six ingredients, but I’m mixing them up in a different way and hopefully it tastes different when you get it."

"God just put a love for it inside of me, I love telling stories, drawing and painting. Animation is a fairly solitary art form. But what happens when you sit in a theater with an audience and you hear their audible responses to your work—the crying, the laughter—there is nothing like it. I just love storytelling. I am a ham actor with a pencil. I love performing on canvas or on paper or right now on a digital screen."

"There is no greater pleasure for me than to have someone see a painting or a sketch of mine and say to me “yes, that’s exactly how I always pictured it!."

"Tolkien takes the stance that I believe all of us should take; that is, of decent, though fallible, people struggling against evil. He does not wallow in horrible scenes and images, though horrible events are certainly depicted in his writings. Rather, he dwells on hope, on perseverance, on faith, on honour, and on love. As a result of Tolkien’s own stance, I have rarely painted or sketched a scene from Middle-earth that was deliberately ugly, or dark, or that I intended should in any way glorify or honour the power or the triumph of evil. I wish to follow Tolkien in highlighting light, and life, and the deeply-felt longing we all have for the good, the true, and the beautiful."

"As with any classic novel, each subsequent reading teaches me a bit more about myself, about the greater world, and about the nature of life and mystery; because at each reading, I approach the texts as a different person."

"She was smart enough to leave as a big star and give everybody the finger – ‘I’m outta here!'"

"Your cinematic body of work speaks for yourself, but so does the other side of Kim Novak – the free spirit who left Hollywood to live atop the hills of Big Sur. Kim Novak the painter and llama farmer. You are an icon whose screen presence is unmatched, and yet you’ve lived your life with dignity and authenticity, and the courage to follow your heart wherever it takes you."

"It was a tool for me. I could express what I was feeling, whether it's good feelings or bad feelings. In that case it was bad feelings. But it was like all of a sudden, 'Who cares what Donald Trump or anyone else thinks of you?'"

"You know, I wasn't gonna wait around. And I thought, 'You know, what I'd like to do if I have my choice, I wanna go to Big Sur and go back to painting.' For better or worse, I left Hollywood. I let in very few people in my life, and I got involved with animals in my life. And not just cats and dogs. I had to learn who I was again through animals, because animals know who you really are."

"I don't keep up with anything that's said. If I paid attention to the good things, I'd have to pay attention to the bad things. I don't keep up with all that. It's better to just go along and do what you do. For a long time when I was in Hollywood, I did pay attention and it was confusing. It led you down a jagged path. It pulled you in one direction, then another direction. I would get off my focus. I had a hard time with boundaries."

"When you’re happy, you’re on a cloud higher than anybody can see. All of a sudden, the cloud turns grey and it starts putting pressure on you and before you know it you’re down at the bottom of the hole again."

"… It’s exciting to dress up in gorgeous clothes and to feel sexy and to look sexy. It’s wonderful, but it’s a trap. You become satisfied with that being enough, then later in life it isn’t enough. So many people, once they got older and were no longer looked at for their beauty, just fell apart"

"I wanted to be appreciated for what I was as a person and what I had to offer. I didn’t feel my work meant anything there. I knew I was a good artist and I wanted to express my feelings. Not the writer’s or the director’s; I wanted to express me. I wanted to play the role of somebody who was mentally ill. I think I could have done a really good job, because I knew those feelings."

"What I really liked about him was he never messed with my mind as far as interpretation. Bad directors would try to tell you how to think. That's so disruptive. It's just very disruptive unless you both come to an agreement on the character. Hitchcock was very precise about where he wanted you to stand. He never messed with your interpretation. It was wonderful. That gave you the freedom as a performer. I didn't agree with him about the costumes, but on the other hand, he let me express my views."

"I would just say hold out for what you believe in, and don't be afraid to express yourself. Don't let people try to change you, because in the long run, if you keep trying to do what everyone else thinks is right, it's not. You've got to do what you believe. Shakespeare was so right: 'This above all, to thine own self be true.’"

"[Vertigo] was before its time, really. I was not appreciated in my time. I think I'm appreciated more now. I'm glad to know that I'm still around to know that I'm more appreciated now."

"It happens in every marriage. My husband, whom I adored, wanted me to be more like how he wanted me to be. But I have too much of an independent personality. I’d be off painting and he wanted me to be more of a housewife…In Hollywood, they think they want you, but really they want what they want you to be."