David Hockney
And then I went round the corner and there's a Van Gogh portrait, and you just think, well, this is another level. A higher level, actually. I love the Sargent, but it's not the level of Van Gogh.
Well, in Bradford I could say I was brought up in Bradford and Hollywood.
Shadows sometimes people don't see shadows. The Chinese of course never paint them in pictures, oriental art never deals with shadow. But I noticed these shadows and I knew it meant it was sunny.
But slowly I began to use cameras and then think about what it was that was going on. It took me a long time, I mean I actually played with cameras and photography for about 20 years.
I made a photograph of a garden in Kyoto, the Zen garden, which is a rectangle. But a photograph taken from any one point will not show, well it shows a rectangle, but not with ninety degree angles.
But, I would always be thinking of how pictures are constructed and colour, how to use it, I mean you're using it for constructing, makes you think about it, the place did as well.
You had to be aware that I saw that photography was a mere episode in the history of the optical projection and when the chemicals ended, meaning the picture was fixed by chemicals, we were in a new era.
Smoking calms me down. It's enjoyable. I don't want politicians deciding what is exciting in my life.
I haven't stopped painting or drawing - I've just added another medium.
I believe that the very process of looking can make a thing beautiful.Collection: Beautiful
If you see the world as beautiful, thrilling and mysterious, as I think I do, then you feel quite alive.Collection: Beautiful
It takes a long time to make it simple.Collection: Simple
If you are not playful you are not alive.Collection: Alive
The camera can't see space. It sees surfaces. People see space, which is much more interesting.Collection: Space
If we are to change our world view, images have to change.Collection: Our World
In art, new ways of seeing mean new ways of feeling; you can't divorce the two, as, we are now aware, you cannot have time without space and space without time.Collection: Art
Faces are the most interesting things we see; other people fascinate me, and the most interesting aspect of other people - the point where we go inside them - is the face. It tells all.Collection: People
We don't all see the same way at all. Even if I'm sitting looking at you, there is always the memory of you as well. And a memory is now. So someone who's never met you before is seeing a different person. That's bound to be the case. We all see something different. I assume most people don't look very hard at anything.Collection: Memories
Teaching people to draw is teaching people to lookCollection: Teaching
I have always believed that art should be a deep pleasure...ther e is always, everywhere, an enormous amount of suffering. But I believe my duty as an artist is to overcome and alleviate the sterility of despair...New ways of seeing mean new ways of feeling... I do believe that painting can change the world.Collection: Art
I am constantly preoccupied with how to remove distance so that we can all come closer together, so that we can all begin to sense we are the same, we are one.Collection: Distance
The urge to draw must be quite deep within us, because children love to do it.Collection: Children
I think photography has made us see the landscape in a very dull way - that's one of its effects. It's not spatial.Collection: Photography
I thought the iPhone was great, but this takes it to a new level - simply because it's eight times the size of the iPhone, as big as a reasonably-sized sketchbook... Anyone who likes drawing and mark-making will like to explore new media.Collection: Technology
Loads of people, particularly artists, hate pretty pictures. Now I've never met anyone who didn't like a pretty face.Collection: Beauty
Time is the great mystery anyway. And it's still the great mystery in the moving picture as well.Collection: Moving
I love California; everything is so artificial.Collection: Love
I want life thrilling and rich. And it is. I make sure it is.Collection: Want
It's difficult to talk about colour, even remember colour actually.Collection: Remember
Paint something every day.Collection: Habit
The picture itself is a document. How do you mean? We're looking at a document. It gives you clues.Collection: Mean
I never work with music. I hate background music, always did. I only like music in the foreground, meaning, deliberately listen to it, actually.Collection: Hate
I believe that the problem of how you depict something is a formal problem. It's an interesting one and it's a permanent one; there's no solution to it. There are a thousand and one ways you can go about it. There's no set rule.Collection: Believe
I usually only draw myself in down periods... I suppose that's why I often draw myself looking grim. I just think, 'Let's have a look in the mirror.' When you are alone and you look in a mirror you never put on a pleasing smile. Well, you don't, do you?Collection: Thinking
On the 31st of October 2011 year, I had a mini-stroke. I couldn't finish my sentences. So I went to the doctor. It was a tiny one. The speech came back in a month or so. I did notice I could draw even better, I felt. I was concentrating more. And I wasn't talking much, but I was drawing. I said, "Well, I don't have to talk much."Collection: Doctors
What I always longed to do was to be able to paint like I can draw, most artists would tell you that, they would all like to paint like they can draw.Collection: Artist
The lens is a tyranny.Collection: Lenses
Style is something you can use, and you can be like a magpie, just taking what you want.Collection: Style
Style is something you can use, and you can be like a magpie, just taking what you want. The idea of the rigid style seemed to me then something you needn't concern yourself with, it would trap you.Collection: Ideas
There would be no bohemia without smoking.Collection: Smoking
The only people who need degrees are dentists and brain surgeons.Collection: Education
Until I saw my drawings replayed on the iPad, I'd never seen myself draw. Someone watching me would be concentrating on the exact moment, but I'd always be thinking a little bit ahead. That's especially so in a drawing where you are limiting yourself, a line drawing for example. When you are doing them you are very tense, because you have to reduce everything to such simple terms.Collection: Simple
Until cubism, all art, all pictures, could be 'read' by anybody. If this hadn't been so, the Christian message wouldn't have been seen by peasants and its importance would have been diminished.Collection: Christian
How can Blair fight a war on terror? Terror is not an ideology or an army; terror is a technique.Collection: War
We need all kinds of artists. We have no need to destroy drawing. We lose so much. This wouldn't happen in music.Collection: Artist
It's a myth that if you're liked by only four people it must be good. It might also be very bad: they might be your mother, your brother, your uncle and your aunt.Collection: Mother
The moment you can learn to deal with homosexuality in art, it's quite an exciting moment, just as in a sense when people 'come out' it's quite an exciting moment. It means they become aware of their desires, and can deal with them in a remarkably honest way.Collection: Art
OH, I LIKE smoking, I do. I smoke for my health, my mental health. Tobacco gives you little pauses, a rest from life. I don't suppose anyone smoking a pipe would have road rage, would they?Collection: Giving
In one gallery they actually had a notice which said No Sketching. How obnoxious! I said, How do you think these things got on the walls if there was no sketching?Collection: Wall