Damian Loeb Born : May 9, 1970 Browse All Authors Top 43 quotes by Damian Loeb Each painting, I feel like I kind of might have gotten something. If I feel like I totally got it, there's probably something wrong and it's not finished. And if I really feel like I understand it then I'm done with these paintings and I'll have to do something else. Damian Loeb painting kind done Every show I've done, I've just wanted to understand something of this weird life that I woke up in. I've never woken up in anyone else's life, so I've got to understand this one. The only skill I was given is this painting. Damian Loeb painting done I wanted to finally feel better about understanding. I painted my wife because I wanted to understand her. I can talk to her, but I didn't understand why I was so compelled. Damian Loeb wife feel-better understanding I started getting afraid of dying. I don't have any religion and I wanted to understand something about these greater powers without anthropomorphizing it. Damian Loeb dying Now that I'm a father of three kids, suddenly the whole world seems different. I don't want to take anything for granted. If you gaze on something and you appreciate it, you become a part of that circle. That seemed to me to be the only relevance I could understand. The space, the time and the vastness of it all was overwhelming. I needed to understand it or I just was lost. Damian Loeb appreciate father kids Beauty has became a pejorative word in art. It was not something one should aspire to, because it was pedestrian. Beautiful things became cheap and easy. If it's cheap and easy, then upper classes aren't going to aspire to it. So, they have to find something more esoteric. I wanted the paintings to be realistic enough that you would have the ability to forget that I'm showing them to you. Damian Loeb painting beautiful art I'm interested in visual vocabulary, like Andy Warhol was interested in that vocabulary of advertisements and television and pop culture. I do a great deal of tropes. This past decade has seen a new term, "meme," which is exactly what I'm studying. Damian Loeb study culture past Every time I have people over, I watch how long they look at every part of the painting, or pictures on my computer. I have a few close friends and people that are constants. Whether I like their opinion or not, I've been hearing it for a long time and I can use it as this constant. I mentally pay attention to how long they look at every image, which ones they pause on and what parts of it they look at. Damian Loeb attention long people I don't try to force-feed it or put any things on the images until I'm making a painting. It's not photorealism. Photorealism's goal is to reproduce a photograph. The best photorealism can't beat a printer, and I have a really nice printer. I don't want to go blind doing what a printer can do. Damian Loeb nice goal trying Every single painting is different. I'm always trying to figure out what I'm interested in. Usually when I go through and I make the collages or the images for ideas that I want to paint, it's like an Ouija board. Each painting I do is trying to understand what the hell I'm looking at, or want to look at. Damian Loeb painting different trying Our memories are convenient lies we create, cribbing images from others' experiences. We discard the personal specifics which don't conform to the ideal conventional beauty created by art directors and cinematographers. Damian Loeb personal beauty memories art Artists talk in 'art speak.' Damian Loeb artists talk speak art I had no interest in high school besides art. Damian Loeb high high-school art school When I'm not painting, I'm Oujia-boarding with my photos. I'll sort through my pictures, put them in different folders, and come back months later to one in particular and try to figure out why I took it. Damian Loeb pictures try back painting I take a lot of pictures. Damian Loeb pictures lot take I have always been interested in having people fall into the image and be aware of their reaction first, and then think about the style. Damian Loeb think style people fall I have to assume that everybody interprets a piece of art they're exposed to as if it's already perfect in its wholeness, without knowing any backstory. Damian Loeb without knowing perfect art Ironically, my paintings don't photograph well. Damian Loeb ironically paintings well photograph The vocabulary I use has to reflect the people I'm trying to communicate with. Damian Loeb reflect vocabulary trying people You just can't control your art in the future. Damian Loeb control you future art