Chuck Close

While photography is the easiest medium in which to be competent, it is the hardest in which to develop an idiosyncratic personal…

— Chuck Close

A photograph doesn't gain weight or lose weight, or change from being happy to being sad. It's frozen. You can use it,…

— Chuck Close

Those who are waiting for an epiphany to strike may wait forever. The artist simply goes to work, making art, both good…

— Chuck Close

I don't care about the Guggenheim. The Guggenheim isn't involved in anything that I am interested in. I don't care about motorcycles…

— Chuck Close

I think most paintings are a record of the decisions that the artist made. I just perhaps make them a little clearer…

— Chuck Close

I can't always reach the image in my mind... almost never, in fact... so that the abstract image I create is not…

— Chuck Close

I don't want the viewer to be able to peel away the layers of my painting like the layers of an onion…

— Chuck Close

Having a routine, knowing what to do, gives me a sense of freedom and keeps me from going crazy. It's calming.

— Chuck Close

Inspiration is for amateurs - the rest of us just show up and get to work. And the belief that things will…

— Chuck Close

All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you.If you're sitting…

— Chuck Close

Painting is the most magical of mediums. The transcendence is truly amazing to me every time I go to a museum and…

— Chuck Close

Ive said its a little bit like a magician performing for a convention of magicians... all the magicians in the audience watching…

— Chuck Close

I did some pastels and I did other pieces in which there was just basically one color per square, and then they…

— Chuck Close

In life you can be dealt a winning hand of cards and you can find a way to lose, and you can…

— Chuck Close

Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds…

— Chuck Close

The camera is objective. When it records a face it can't make any hierarchical decisions about a nose being more important than…

— Chuck Close

Painting is a lie. It's the most magic of all media, the most transcendent. It makes space where there is no space.

— Chuck Close

You don't have to reinvent the wheel every day. Today you will do what you did yesterday, and tomorrow you will do…

— Chuck Close

The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration.…

— Chuck Close

Most people are good at too many things. And when you say someone is focused, more often than not what you actually…

— Chuck Close

I never said the camera was truth. It is, however, a more accurate and more objective way of seeing.

— Chuck Close

It doesn't upset artists to find out that artists used lenses or mirrors or other aids, but it certainly does upset the…

— Chuck Close

In my art, I deconstruct and then I reconstruct, so visual perception is one of my primary interests.

— Chuck Close

It's like a magic well. You think you know everything about [a] photograph, you think you've gotten everything out of it, and…

— Chuck Close

Every idea occurs while you are working. If you are sitting around waiting for inspiration, you could sit there forever.

— Chuck Close

I love sculpture, and minimal sculpture is really my favorite stuff, but I wasn't very good at it, and I don't think…

— Chuck Close