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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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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)
Magic
Painting
Media
Space
Lying
Makes
Transcendent
Photographer
Photography

More quotes by 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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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
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There are things about signing on to a process over the long term that protect you from the buffeting winds of change.
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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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 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
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All the best ideas come out of the process they come out of the work itself.
Chuck Close
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I've always thought that problem-solving is highly overrated and that problem creation is far more interesting.
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.
Chuck Close
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Those who are waiting for an epiphany to strike may wait forever. The artist simply goes to work, making art, both good and not so good.
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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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
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Sculpture occupies real space like we do... you walk around it and relate to it almost as another person or another object.
Chuck Close
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Paintings can make you cry and it's just **colored dirt**.
Chuck Close
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I think most paintings are a record of the decisions that the artist made. I just perhaps make them a little clearer than some people have.
Chuck Close
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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
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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
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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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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
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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.
Chuck Close