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Home
Authors
Chuck Close
American
Artist
About the author
I wanted to translate from one flat surface to another. In fact, my learning disabilities controlled a lot of things. I don't recognize faces, so I'm sure it's what drove me to portraits in the first place.
Chuck Close,
American
Artist
#First
#Fact
#Learning
#Faces
#Portraits
You know, the way art history is taught, often there's nothing that tells you why the painting is great. The description of a lousy painting and the description of a great painting will very much sound the same.
Chuck Close,
American
Artist
#Will
#Art
#Nothing
#History
#Painting
#Sound
Sometimes I really want to paint somebody and I don't get a photograph that I want to work from.
Chuck Close,
American
Artist
#Want
#Work
What difference does it make whether you're looking at a photograph or looking at a still life in front of you? You still have to look.
Chuck Close,
American
Artist
#Life
#Difference
Part of the joy of looking at art is getting in sync in some ways with the decision-making process that the artist used and the record that's embedded in the work.
Chuck Close,
American
Artist
#Work
#Art
#Decision
#Artist
#Joy
Painting is the most magical of mediums. The transcendence is truly amazing to me every time I go to a museum and I see how somebody figured another way to rub colored dirt on a flat surface and make space where there is no space or make you think of a life experience.
Chuck Close,
American
Artist
#Time
#Life
#Experience
#Painting
#Space
Most people are good at too many things. And when you say someone is focused, more often than not what you actually mean is they're very narrow.
Chuck Close,
American
Artist
#People
It's always a pleasure to talk about someone else's work.
Chuck Close,
American
Artist
#Talk
#Work
#Pleasure
It doesn't upset artists to find out that artists used lenses or mirrors or other aids, but it certainly does upset the art historians.
Chuck Close,
American
Artist
#Art
#Artists
#Historians
I'm plagued with indecision in my life. I can't figure out what to order in a restaurant.
Chuck Close,
American
Artist
#Life
#Order
#Indecision
I think most paintings are a record of the decisions that the artist made. I just perhaps make them a little clearer than some people have.
Chuck Close,
American
Artist
#People
#Decisions
#Artist
I discovered about 150 dots is the minimum number of dots to make a specific recognizable person. You can make something that looks like a head, with fewer dots, but you won't be able to give much information about who it is.
Chuck Close,
American
Artist
#Information
I did some pastels and I did other pieces in which there was just basically one color per square, and then they would get bigger and I could get 2 or 3 colors into the square, and ultimately I just started making oil paintings.
Chuck Close,
American
Artist
#Oil
#Colors
I always thought that one of the reasons why a painter likes especially to have other painters look at his or her work is the shared experience of having pushed paint around.
Chuck Close,
American
Artist
#Work
#Thought
#Experience
All the fingerprint paintings are done without a grid.
Chuck Close,
American
Artist
I'm very learning-disabled, and I think it drove me to what I'm doing.
Chuck Close,
American
Artist
#Learning
Sculpture occupies real space like we do... you walk around it and relate to it almost as another person or another object.
Chuck Close,
American
Artist
#Space
#Sculpture