Marlene Dumas Quotes

My painting does not come from the easel.

A painting is finished when the subject comes back, when what has caused the painting to be made comes back as an object.

When I'm painting the picture, I'm really painting a picture. I may have a flat-footed technique, or something like that, but still, to me, the thrill, or the meat of the thing, is the actual painting. I don't get any thrill out of laying it out.

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 am like a folk painter. Paint and move ahead.

The painter must enclose himself within his work; he must respond not with words, but with paintings.

All I try to do is put as many colors as I can on the canvas every night.

When I'm drawing, I'm drawing with the light, being completely open and creative. I can't draw in the evening. I need light and I need warmth if it is a summer thing, and I need cold if it is a winter collection. The good thing is that I have houses to go to whenever I'm working. I draw according to the place.

I always start a painting with the sky.

I paint abstract expressions.

I start a picture and I finish it.

For me, drawing is a way of navigating the imagination, and it remains the fundamental vehicle of my practice. Drawing allows me to be at my most inventive.

I was blown away by being able to color. Then I started to draw... bringing a blank white canvas to life was fascinating.

Art is not about thinking something up. It is the opposite - getting something down.

Hands are the tool of the painter, the artist.

I like to make collages - paper collages.

You cannot possibly invent painting all by yourself.

I want to make beautiful paintings. But I don't make beautiful paintings by putting beautiful paint on a canvas with a beautiful motif. It just doesn't work. I expect my paintings to be strong and surprising.

Painting is, I think, inevitably an archaic activity and one that depends on spiritual values.

I always listen to music while I draw.

Painting seems like some kind of peculiar miracle that I need to have again and again.

There is nothing that special to see when looking at me. I'm a painter who paints day in day out, from morning till evening - figure pictures and landscapes, more rarely portraits.

Painting is seen as picture making, the making of an art object, something that can stand on its own.

I think when you work alone - the way I do it, anyway - you could sort of liken it to painting, where there's sort of a one-on-one with the canvas.

To me, being in the studio is one of the most exciting parts about being an artist.