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It's like a magic well. You think you know everything about [a] photograph, you think you've gotten everything out of it, and all of a sudden I see things in it I'd never seen before.

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)
Things
Sudden
Never
Gotten
Think
Photograph
Thinking
Magic
Like
Seen
Wells
Everything
Well

More quotes by 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 did some pastels and I did other pieces in which there was just basically one color per square, and then they would get bigger and I could get 2 or 3 colors into the square, and ultimately I just started making oil paintings.
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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Paintings can make you cry and it's just **colored dirt**.
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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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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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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
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Any innovation that is evident in my paintings is a direct result of something that happened in the course of making a print.
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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Of all the artists who emerged in the '80s, I think perhaps Cindy Sherman is the most important.
Chuck Close
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Inspiration is for amateurs - the rest of us just show up and get to work. And the belief that things will grow out of the activity itself and that you will - through work - bump into other possibilities and kick open other doors that you would never have dreamt of if you were just sitting around looking for a great art idea.
Chuck Close
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You know, the way art history is taught, often there's nothing that tells you why the painting is great. The description of a lousy painting and the description of a great painting will very much sound the same.
Chuck Close
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When you come up in the art world, whatevers in the air, the issues of the moment, end up becoming part of the working method or modus operandi of how you think about doing a painting. And I came up at a time when-actually painting was dead when I came up. Sculpture sort of ruled.
Chuck Close
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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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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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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
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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
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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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All the best ideas come out of the process they come out of the work itself.
Chuck Close
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I don't work with inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs. I just get to work.
Chuck Close