Like a lot of young people who wanted to be artists, comics were a gateway for me. — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
Abstraction and representation are supposed to be going down two very different paths, one sociological and the other aesthetic. — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
One of the reasons I paint black people is because I am a black person. — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
There's nothing more special than intellect and labour that makes painting work. There's no magic there; it's information, and it's work. — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
My introduction to art history was like everybody else's. You see an art history book that has works by Rembrandt and Leonardo… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
I don't see those paintings as abstractions, especially because they are emblems of the inkblot. They aren't smashed together; they are constructed… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
The moment you introduce difference into a museum, then the privileged space is contested, and under the most ideal circumstances what all… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
I gave up on the idea of making art a long time ago, because I wanted to know how to make paintings;… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
If you think about the way we experience art, the paradigm is still Western European. If I go to the National Gallery,… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
My first black-on-black picture was 'The Portrait of an Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self.' I started using it as… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
People don't really want to hear me say this, but a black person who will give a million dollars to the Museum… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
What I hope 'Mastry' ends up doing is completely undermining or doing away with the notion that artists are a savant: that… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
I still make paintings and use the figure; it's hard to do and hard to succeed. On some levels, because I am… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
When art works travel from place to place, what you have is the opportunity to engage with the intellect of another person… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
Every step on my way to becoming an artist seemed preordained. The right people were always in the right places at the… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
[My picture A Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self ] was a way of demonstrating that there… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
I decided that the whole idea of what it means to be an artist was that somehow you are ontologically oriented toward… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
You can describe [Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self] as a manifesto of sorts. I saw it… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
To me, if there is any sort of value added to the accumulation of knowledge over time, then the work of artists… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
Just like in the art museum, and notions of beauty and pleasure, if the hero is always a white guy with a… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
Black painters have done all kinds of work. It's the treatment of forms they engage in-that's what determines the value of the… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
I want people to understand that this is a very calibrated image [Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
Before people outside of the Western European tradition started asking to be in there, the people who were accumulating objects for the… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
The National Gallery is the place that means to represent everything that's good and important in art and show what it believes… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
Too often, if you look back through the history of representation and you take the work of African-American artists, the work is… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
I came in making choices about how I deploy aesthetics and imagery strategically. It seems to me that's the only legitimate way… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
Artwork operates on two different levels: On one level there's artwork as a mode of expressivity, and then there's the other side,… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
Paintings don't just happen. I am not a proponent of the idea of an artist as someone who kind of magically makes… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
If you look at the image [ Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self ], it treads on… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share Image
There's nothing more special than intellect and labour that makes painting work. There's no magic there; it's information, and it's work. — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share
When art works travel from place to place, what you have is the opportunity to engage with the intellect of another person who has… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share
I stumbled upon Charles White purely by chance while looking through a book 'Great Negroes, Past and Present' in the library at Forty-Ninth Street… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share
The lighter the skin, the more acceptable you are. The darker the skin, the more marginalised you become. I want to demonstrate that you… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share
Artwork operates on two different levels: On one level there's artwork as a mode of expressivity, and then there's the other side, where the… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share
One of the things I recognized early on, doing whatever studies of black history I have, is that even though black folks were transported… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share
If you walk into any magazine store, I guarantee that nine out of 10 covers will feature white, blonde, blue-eyed, slim women because that's… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share
For black people who are really dark - and a lot of black people were averse to be dark skinned - it was believed… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share
Before people outside of the Western European tradition started asking to be in there, the people who were accumulating objects for the museum were… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share
What I hope 'Mastry' ends up doing is completely undermining or doing away with the notion that artists are a savant: that they do… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share
My dream was always to be in museums. It's a big and important milestone and a fulfillment of one of my primary ambitions. — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share
In [Ralph] Ellison's case, it's more psychological than it is phenomenal, and it's conditioned by anger, animosity, and lack of desire to engage with… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share
When I started, I was aware of using the black as a rhetorical device. It's understanding that black people come in a wide range… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share
No one has a right to occupy the privileged position all the time, so it should be contested. It should always be messy in… — Kerry James Marshall Copy Share
![“[My picture A Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self ] was a way of demonstrating that there was a broad range of possibilities and fairly unlimited utility for a black figure that didn't have to comprise its blackness in order to preserve a place in the field of representation.” quote by Kerry James Marshall](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/b2d/kerry-james-marshall-5157_art_my-picture-a-portrait-of-the-artist-as-a_2641070.jpg)
![“You can describe [Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self] as a manifesto of sorts. I saw it as a pivotal turn, a work that really led me down the avenues that brought me to where I am. That picture was the vehicle that helped me clarify a lot of things and I began to understand that…” quote by Kerry James Marshall](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/d6b/kerry-james-marshall-5157_art_you-can-describe-portrait-of-the-artist_1969257.jpg)
![“I want people to understand that this is a very calibrated image [Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self ], where point by point, very little is left to chance.” quote by Kerry James Marshall](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/970/kerry-james-marshall-5157_art_i-want-people-to-understand-that-this-is_2009456.jpg)
![“If you look at the image [ Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self ], it treads on a kind of popular stereotypical image of the black figure, in both its flatness and slightly comic edge. To take that image as a starting point and to render it in a proto-classical medium, like egg…” quote by Kerry James Marshall](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/584/kerry-james-marshall-5157_art_if-you-look-at-the-image-portrait-of-the_829024.jpg)
