Quote

You must put the essence of what you want to say into a painting. The rest is arbitrary. Chosen with discernment, but chosen, and choice involves elimination.

Louise Bourgeois

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Louise Bourgeois
Age: 98 †
Born: 1911
Born: January 1
Died: 2010
Died: January 1
Artist
Drawer
Engraver
Illustrator
Installation Artist
Jewelry Designer
Painter
Photographer
Printmaker
Sculptor
Visual Artist
Paris
France
Louise Goldwater
Choice
Painting
Rest
Discernment
Choices
Elimination
Must
Arbitrary
Involves
Chosen
Essence

More quotes by Louise Bourgeois

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If you flatter me, or if you look at me the right way, I will kill myself to please you. It's very painful to be an overachiever.
Louise Bourgeois
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One must accept the fact that others don’t see what you do.
Louise Bourgeois
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Every day you have to abandon your past or accept it and then, if you cannot accept it, you become a sculptor.
Louise Bourgeois
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My childhood has never lost its magic, it has never lost its mystery, and it has never lost its drama.
Louise Bourgeois
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In my sculpture, it's not an image I am seeking, it's not an idea. My goal is to re-live a past emotion. My art is an exorcism, and beauty is something I never talk about.
Louise Bourgeois
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Everyone should have the right to marry. To make a commitment to love someone forever is a beautiful thing.
Louise Bourgeois
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My life has been regulated by insomnia.
Louise Bourgeois
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The Spider is an ode to my mother. She was my best friend. Like a spider, my mother was a weaver. . . Like spiders, my mother was very clever. Spiders are friendly presences that eat mosquitoes. We know that mosquitoes spread diseases and are therefore unwanted. So, spiders are helpful and protective, just like my mother.
Louise Bourgeois
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Art is restoration: the idea is to repair the damages that are inflicted in life, to make something that is fragmented - which is what fear and anxiety do to a person - into something whole.
Louise Bourgeois
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An artist can show things that other people are terrified of expressing.
Louise Bourgeois
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My work disturbs people and nobody wants to be disturbed. They are not fully aware of the effect my work has on them, but they know it is disturbing.
Louise Bourgeois
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Sometimes it is necessary to make a confrontation-and I like that.
Louise Bourgeois
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It is a great privilege to be able to work with, and I suppose work off, my feelings through sculpture.
Louise Bourgeois
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If you are resentful, you keep the thing alive. So the way to go on is to get rid of it, in order to forgive in order to forget.
Louise Bourgeois
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I have drawn my whole life. My parents were in the tapestry restoration business, and as a young girl, I would draw in the missing parts of the tapestry that needed to be re-woven. My ability to draw made me indispensable to my parents.
Louise Bourgeois
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My knives are like a tongue - I love, I do not love, I hate. If you don’t love me, I am ready to attack. I am a double-edged knife.
Louise Bourgeois
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I am a searcher... I always was... and I still am... searching for the missing piece.
Louise Bourgeois
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A work of art doesn't have to be explained.
Louise Bourgeois
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Art is a way of recognizing oneself.
Louise Bourgeois
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Clothing is . . . an exercise in memory. It makes me explore the past: how did I feel when I wore that. They are like signposts in the search for the past.
Louise Bourgeois