A painting to me is primarily a verb, not a noun, an event first and only secondarily an image. Elaine de Kooning More Quotes by Elaine de Kooning More Quotes From Elaine de Kooning I'm more interested in character. Character comes out of the work. Style is applied or imposed on it. Elaine de Kooning style character Women can also be creative in total isolation. I know excellent women artists who do original work without any response to speak of. Maybe they are used to lack of feedback. Maybe they are tougher. Elaine de Kooning isolation creative artist For one thing, I want gesture-any kind of gesture, all kinds of gesture-gentle or brutal, joyous or tragic; the gesture of space soaring, sinking, streaming, whirling; the gestures of light flowing or spurting through color. I see everything as possessing or possessed by gesture. I've often thought of my paintings as having an axis around which everything revolves. Elaine de Kooning color space light Every artist returns to things. The drawings that you make as a child or as an adolescent and the ideas that you have as a young beginning artist, no doubt they crop up again and again. Elaine de Kooning artist children ideas Art has been hijacked by nonartists. It's been taken over by bookkeeping. The whole thing is so corrupt. But I suppose that's okay. For artists, everything is grist for the mill. Artists are like cockroaches; we can't be stamped out. Elaine de Kooning cockroaches taken art Artists are like cockroaches; everything is grist for the mill. Elaine de Kooning mills cockroaches artist Inspiration is indispensable to my work, but it is hard to come by. It is there or it is not; it is a gift of the gods. Elaine de Kooning indispensable hard inspiration I made my first trip west of the Hudson and it was a revelation. The naked musculature of the Rockies was overpowering and my painting responded. Elaine de Kooning naked west firsts
