I want my pictures to be things. I want them to be made up of marks that are physically and individually self-sufficient. Howard Hodgkin More Quotes by Howard Hodgkin More Quotes From Howard Hodgkin The only way an artist can communicate with the world at large is on the level of feeling. Howard Hodgkin communication artist feelings You keep on balancing and balancing and balancing until the picture wins, because then the subject's turned into the picture. Howard Hodgkin subjects winning I am isolated as an artist, not as a person. Howard Hodgkin isolated artist persons When I finish a painting, it usually looks as surprising to me as to anyone else. Howard Hodgkin painting surprising looks A lot of people... are afraid of pictures which have visible emotions in them. They feel calmer in front of pictures which are placid. Howard Hodgkin placid emotion people A painting is finished when the subject comes back, when what has caused the painting to be made comes back as an object. Howard Hodgkin back-when painting made I think words come between the spectator and the picture. Howard Hodgkin spectators thinking Passion lies between one mark and the next, and also within all of them. Howard Hodgkin next passion lying It is simply impossible to control a large painting with the edge in the same way that you can control a small one. Howard Hodgkin painting impossible way To be a painter now is to be part of a very small, endangered species. Howard Hodgkin painter endangered-species painting Collecting has been my great extravagance. It's a way of being. I collect for the same reason that I eat too much-I'm one of nature's shoppers. Howard Hodgkin extravagance too-much way I look at my pictures, and I think, 'Well, how did I do that? Howard Hodgkin wells looks thinking I don't look at the work of my contemporaries very much; I tend to look at pictures by dead artists. It's much easier to get near their paintings. Howard Hodgkin painting artist looks The picture surface recedes just as much in the 20th century as it did in the 15th. The techniques of making pictures have hardly changed. Howard Hodgkin surface century technique My pictures really finish themselves. Howard Hodgkin finishing I dont think you can lightly paint a picture. Its an activity I take very seriously. Howard Hodgkin activity paint thinking I never think that anything I do is courageous. Howard Hodgkin courageous thinking My friends tend to be writers. I think writers and painters are really all the same-we just sit in our rooms. Howard Hodgkin painter rooms thinking I'm vulnerable to criticism. Any artist is, because you work alone in your studio and, until recently, critics were the only way you'd get any feedback. Howard Hodgkin criticism artist way I am happy for people to talk about my pictures, but I wish devoutly that I was not expected to talk about them myself. Howard Hodgkin expected wish people
