Bruce Nauman Quotes

Personally, I can't see how anyone can produce any beautiful music out of being angry.

I'm generally quite an angry person, and I like to channel my anger toward something creative.

I've never been particularly good at explaining or even understanding what this sort of rage is that is so accessible to me. I'm not an out-of-control person, but I can access in my work very easily a feeling of real fury. Thank goodness I've channeled it into my work, I guess.

A lot of artists think they want anger. But a real, strong, bitter anger occupies the mind, leaving no room for creativity.

If I'm on a bus and someone makes my blood boil, I'll pocket those emotions and put them in a song.

You’re got to be angry—of course it helps if you can draw pretty well.

Real artists take the misery and sadness of life and translate it into art.

I really think of the studio as being like craftsmanship time, and then playing is about releasing energy, and the two are really different.

Well, painting is the one thing I do, that is just me. It's me and easels, and the pencils. And as long as I don't drool too much over the canvas, the colors come out pretty good. And it's a chance to express all that I've got inside, that I sometimes keep hidden. And I think that's why I paint big broad, wide open landscapes.

I only ever really take out my guitar when I'm miserable, which isn't necessarily a very good time to do it.

The highs, the lows, the peaks, the valleys, whatever, it's all going to go into the art, whether I'm singing or acting or whatever.

Art is a kind of illness.

I hardly ever write when I'm just feeling great.

I felt I was painting with a Popsicle.

Seven days a week, I'm always drawing, doodling, or painting, whether I'm in the studio or on a plane.

Being an artist is dragging your innermost feelings out, giving a piece of yourself, no matter in which art form, in which medium.

When I wake up, I can't wait to get to the studio, go into the paint room.

The anger and the creativity are so closely intertwined with me, and there's plenty of anger left.

Painting is profoundly emotional. When I finish a painting, I'm usually extremely sad.

I used to write out of angst. My writing was quite miserable, quite angry, even when it was funny. It was based on this sadness and tired emotional disdain for the world.

It's not necessarily bad that you have angst or you have anger - it's what you do with it, how you interpret it into something profoundly moving.

Most artists - painters or writers - I think create out of stress or negative situations. Look at rock music. It's about getting things off of your chest, and it's a means of venting in many ways. That's what my work is about.

Any good film you see gives you enough motivation and adrenaline rush to produce good content, while a bad film can get you so angry that you produce even better content.

Being in a studio is quite a creative and energetic process.

The aggressiveness of it attracted me to hip-hop because I was angry inside. I was an angry kid because of the sickle cell. So I liked the anger in hip-hop. That's what attracted me to it; that's what made me want to do it. It helped me get my aggression out.