Jasper Johns Quotes
"Whatever I do seems artificial and false, to me."
- Jasper Johns
"To be an artist you have to give up everything, including the desire to be a good artist."
- Jasper Johns
(Related: Artist, Desire)
"The thing is, if you believe in the unconscious - and I do - there's room for all kinds of possibilities that I don't know how you prove one way or another."
- Jasper Johns
(Related: Possibilities, Unconscious)
"Sometimes I see it and then paint it. Other times I paint it and then see it. Both are impure situations, and I prefer neither."
- Jasper Johns
"In the place where I was a child, there were no artists and there was no art, so I really didn't know what that meant. I think I thought it meant that I would be in a situation different than the one that I was in."
- Jasper Johns
(Related: Art, Thought, Artists)
"One likes to think that one anticipates changes in the spaces we inhabit, and our ideas about space."
- Jasper Johns
(Related: Ideas, Space)
"Most of the power of painting comes through the manipulation of space... but I don't understand that."
- Jasper Johns
(Related: Power, Manipulation, Painting, Space)
"Intention involves such a small fragment of our consciousness and of our mind and of our life."
- Jasper Johns
(Related: Life, Consciousness, Intention, Mind)
"Do something, do something to that, and then do something to that."
- Jasper Johns
"I think a painting should include more experience than simply intended statement."
- Jasper Johns
(Related: Experience, Painting)
"As one gets older one sees many more paths that could be taken. Artists sense within their own work that kind of swelling of possibilities, which may seem a freedom or a confusion."
- Jasper Johns
(Related: Work, Artists, Confusion, Freedom, May, Possibilities, Sense)
"Everyone is of course free to interpret the work in his own way. I think seeing a picture is one thing and interpreting it is another."
- Jasper Johns
(Related: Work)
"I am just trying to find a way to make pictures."
- Jasper Johns
(Related: Trying)
"I don't know how to organise thoughts. I don't know how to have thoughts."
- Jasper Johns
(Related: Thoughts)
"I have no ideas about what the paintings imply about the world. I don't think that's a painter's business. He just paints paintings without a conscious reason."
- Jasper Johns
(Related: Business, Ideas, Reason, World)
"I never wish for critics."
- Jasper Johns
"I often find that having an idea in my head prevents me from doing something else. Working is therefore a way of getting rid of an idea."
- Jasper Johns
(Related: Idea)
"I tend to like things that already exist."
- Jasper Johns
"One works without thinking how to work."
- Jasper Johns
(Related: Work, Thinking)