Quote

I have no ideas about what the paintings imply about the world. I don't think that's a painter's business. He just paints paintings without a conscious reason.

Jasper Johns

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Jasper Johns
Age: 94
Born: 1930
Born: May 15
Artist
Costume Designer
Designer
Graphic Artist
Illustrator
Painter
Photographer
Printmaker
Sculptor
Augusta
Georgia
World
Conscious
Painting
Business
Ideas
Paints
Reason
Imply
Without
Paintings
Think
Painter
Thinking
Paint

More quotes by Jasper Johns

Image
I think through living one's life, one both changes and remains the same. One can see it either way, one can see oneself as being now what one was and one can see oneself as being absolutely different from what one was. It's a trick of thought.
Jasper Johns
Image
I am just trying to find a way to make pictures.
Jasper Johns
Image
As one gets older one sees many more paths that could be taken. Artists sense within their own work that kind of swelling of possibilities, which may seem a freedom or a confusion.
Jasper Johns
Image
That’s what painting does it organizes vision in a certain way or suggests that certain things be paid attention to and certain other things not be paid attention to. It functions in that way to a certain extent in our civilization.
Jasper Johns
Image
One's range [of ideas] is limited by one's interests and imagination and by one's passion.
Jasper Johns
Image
Take an object. Do something to it. Do something else to it.
Jasper Johns
Image
The thing is, if you believe in the unconscious - and I do - there's room for all kinds of possibilities that I don't know how you prove one way or another.
Jasper Johns
Image
Working is very important to me. Probably because as a child I was taught that work was good. I don’t believe it intellectually but I identify with that idea. So it’s probably just like a habit.
Jasper Johns
Image
I am not strong on perfection.
Jasper Johns
Image
When you work you learn something about what you are doing and you develop habits and procedures out of what you're doing.
Jasper Johns
Image
Merce is my favorite artist in any field.
Jasper Johns
Image
I have meant what I have done. Or I have often meant what I have done. Or I have sometimes meant what I have done. Or I have tried to mean what I was doing.
Jasper Johns
Image
I tend to like things that already exist.
Jasper Johns
Image
Art is either a complaint or appeasement.
Jasper Johns
Image
My experience with life is that it's very fragmented. In one place certain kinds of thing occur, and in another place a different kind of thing occurs. I would like my work to have some vivid indication of those differences. I guess, in painting, it would amount to different kinds of space being represented in it.
Jasper Johns
Image
I think a painting should include more experience than simply intended statement.
Jasper Johns
Image
I feel that works of art are an opportunity for people to construct meaning, so I don't usually tell what they mean. It conveys to people that they have to participate.
Jasper Johns
Image
Bend color names which should be made of neon or copper tubing. Place an object on a surface - trace the object - then bend the object - leaving some part of it attached.
Jasper Johns
Image
Generally, I am opposed to painting which is concerned with conceptions of simplicity. Everything looks busy to me.
Jasper Johns
Image
I'm not sure what 'coming out right' means. It often means that what you do holds a kind of energy that you wouldn't just put there, that comes about through grace of some sort.
Jasper Johns