Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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)
Makes
Transcendent
Photographer
Photography
Magic
Painting
Media
Space
Lying

More quotes by Chuck Close

Image
I learned you could suffer a terrible tragedy and still be happy again.
Chuck Close
Image
There's something Zen-like about the way I work - it's like raking gravel in a Zen Buddhist garden.
Chuck Close
Image
Art saved my life in two ways. It made me feel special, because I could do things my friends couldn't, but it also gave me a way to demonstrate to my teacher that, despite the fact that I couldn't write a paper or do math, I was paying attention.
Chuck Close
Image
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
Image
At the same time that I'm finding the color world I want, I'm also trying to make the imagery, you know, by the nature of the strokes themselves.
Chuck Close
Image
Ive said its a little bit like a magician performing for a convention of magicians... all the magicians in the audience watching this illusion-Do they see the illusion, or do they see the device that made the illusion? Probably they see a little of both.
Chuck Close
Image
It doesn't upset artists to find out that artists used lenses or mirrors or other aids, but it certainly does upset the art historians.
Chuck Close
Image
Never let anyone define what you are capable of by using parameters that don’t apply to you.
Chuck Close
Image
A face is a road map of someone's life. Without any need to amplify that or draw attention to it, there's a great deal that's communicated about who this person is and what their life experiences have been.
Chuck Close
Image
I love sculpture, and minimal sculpture is really my favorite stuff, but I wasn't very good at it, and I don't think in a three-dimensional way.
Chuck Close
Image
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
Image
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.
Chuck Close
Image
I don't work with inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs. I just get to work.
Chuck Close
Image
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
Image
Losing my father at a tender age was extremely important in being able to accept what happened to me later when I became a quadriplegic.
Chuck Close
Image
I can't always reach the image in my mind... almost never, in fact... so that the abstract image I create is not quite there, but it gets to the point where I can leave it.
Chuck Close
Image
Ease is the enemy of the artist. When things get too easy, you're in trouble.
Chuck Close
Image
I always thought that one of the reasons why a painter likes especially to have other painters look at his or her work is the shared experience of having pushed paint around.
Chuck Close
Image
Inspiration is highly overrated. If you sit around and wait for the clouds to part, it's not liable to ever happen. More often than not, work is salvation.
Chuck Close
Image
I've always thought that problem-solving is highly overrated and that problem creation is far more interesting.
Chuck Close