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What difference does it make whether you're looking at a photograph or looking at a still life in front of you? You still have to look.

Chuck Close

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Chuck Close
Age: 81 †
Born: 1940
Born: July 5
Died: 2021
Died: August 19
Drawer
Graphic Artist
Painter
Photographer
Monroe
Washington
Charles Thomas Close
Charles Close
Chuck Close (1940-2021)
Charles Close (1940-2021)
Looks
Difference
Make
Differences
Life
Looking
Whether
Photographer
Stills
Photograph
Doe
Fronts
Still
Photography
Look
Front

More quotes by Chuck Close

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I knew from the age of five what I wanted to do. The one thing I could do was draw. I couldn't draw that much better than some of the other kids, but I cared more and I wanted it badly.
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I absolutely hate technology, and I'm computer illiterate, and I never use any labor-saving devices although I'm not convinced that a computer is a labor-saving device.
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I wanted to translate from one flat surface to another.In fact, my learning disabilities controlled a lot of things. I don't recognize faces, so I'm sure it's what drove me to portraits in the first place.
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The camera is objective. When it records a face it can't make any hierarchical decisions about a nose being more important than a cheek. The camera is not aware of what it is looking at. It just gets it all down.
Chuck Close
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Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process they come out of the work itself.
Chuck Close
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Painting is a lie. It's the most magic of all media, the most transcendent. It makes space where there is no space.
Chuck Close
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There's something Zen-like about the way I work - it's like raking gravel in a Zen Buddhist garden.
Chuck Close
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There are so many artists that are dyslexic or learning disabled, it's just phenomenal. There's also an unbelievably high proportion of artists who are left-handed, and a high correlation between left-handedness and learning disabilities.
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Like any corporation, I have the benefit of the brainpower of everyone who is working for me. It all ends up being my work, the corporate me, but everyone extends ideas and comes up with suggestions.
Chuck Close
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I think the problem with the arts in America is how unimportant it seems to be in our educational system.
Chuck Close
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Get yourself in trouble. If you get yourself in trouble, you don't have the answers. And if you don't have the answers, your solution will more likely be personal because no one else's solutions will seem appropriate. You'll have to come up with your own.
Chuck Close
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I never said the camera was truth. It is, however, a more accurate and more objective way of seeing.
Chuck Close
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I don't work with inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs. I just get to work.
Chuck Close
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Ease is the enemy of the artist. When things get too easy, you're in trouble.
Chuck Close
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Most people are good at too many things. And when you say someone is focused, more often than not what you actually mean is they're very narrow.
Chuck Close
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In my art, I deconstruct and then I reconstruct, so visual perception is one of my primary interests.
Chuck Close
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Never let anyone define what you are capable of by using parameters that don’t apply to you.
Chuck Close
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The thing that interests me about photography, and why it's different from all other media, is that it's the only medium in which there is even the possibility of an accidental masterpiece.
Chuck Close
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I have a great deal of difficulty recognizing faces, especially if I haven't - if I've just met somebody, it's hopeless.
Chuck Close
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I don't believe in inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs. Some of the time you know you're cooking, and the rest of the time, you just do it.
Chuck Close