Amy Sillman

The works have to look like they're confident. But they also have to look sort of troubled. It's this weird thing: "Does…

— Amy Sillman

That’s the huge problem with an abstract painting. When are you done? You’re done when you don’t want to do it anymore.

— Amy Sillman

In my work, we're not looking at an icon, we're not looking at a sign, we're not looking at a representation. We're…

— Amy Sillman

I'm in this process of trying to create a free space. Like an open field, where figure and ground are in very…

— Amy Sillman

Every painting I've ever done has like 100 paintings under it.

— Amy Sillman

It's more this instinct to get in trouble, and then get myself out of trouble. That's what painting is for me.

— Amy Sillman

I made silk screens of my drawings. I could add a drawing that was made with a machine or digitally to a…

— Amy Sillman

All accidents and experiments, and discoveries, are what my work is about. The problem that I have as an artist is being…

— Amy Sillman

Being bad. Discomfort with your body. Bad self image. All those things turn you into an artist. The same things that keep…

— Amy Sillman

I've never read a book on shape. I've read books on gesture; I've read tons of books on color, surface, field, ground,…

— Amy Sillman

I make paintings really slowly because I change them and change them and change them and change them and change them. I…

— Amy Sillman

You can make a beautiful thing, but there's no problem in it. I like the idea of doing a thing, wrecking a…

— Amy Sillman

A lot of what I do in my work is taking a thing and either washing it off, scraping it, covering it,…

— Amy Sillman

I want to expand the question of when something is done. I want to vex the ending. I want to mess around…

— Amy Sillman

Who would be an artist that was perfectly happy? Maybe nowadays, but when I grew up in the '60s, you had nobody…

— Amy Sillman

At some point, I get a weird feeling, and that's when I know it's done. I probably ruin a lot of really…

— Amy Sillman