Quotes

Art is a utilitarian thing, not a decorative thing.

[on At Eternity's Gate (2018)] I think everybody that's from the Western world is probably bottle-fed some concept of Van Gogh [Vincent van Gogh] as a painter. And probably Picasso. You don't know what they do, but you know you've heard the names. ...I'm from Brooklyn. I had no art education. Probably the first impression of a painting that I remember was the painting of 'Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer' by Rembrandt. So you have impressions when you're a child, and then you become a painter. Then you engage in the materiality of it and the way things are put together. You break everything down to all of the elements. And the more I do it, the more surprised I am at how difficult it is to watch anything. [2018]

Whatever you're gonna make, you gotta make it for yourself. The elements or the use of the material has to speak to you. I'm always surprised when people make paintings that are so predictable. [2018]

People might think they know how to do it better. Well, this is my version of what a movie could be. [2018]

[on Vincent van Gogh] I thought he was quite sane when he was painting. Those paintings are not paintings of madness. They're paintings of sanity. [2018]

I think most young artists should never listen to anybody else. You know better than anyone what you need to do. You might think an older artist knows better than you, and is smarter, and they may be, but nobody knows better than you do what you need to do for your own picture. Most older artists are gonna try to get you to conform to the standards that you set out to destroy in the first place. [2018]

I like to push the boundaries about as far as I can, but at a certain moment, you don't want people to say, 'Well, I'm not in the movie anymore.' [2018]

I mean, why does anybody make a movie? Or why does anybody make a painting? Why does anybody make anything? One is to make it for yourself. The other is to share it with other people. If you're going to show it to somebody else, then a whole other set of variables comes in. [2018]

[on At Eternity's Gate (2018)] The movie, in a sense, is a mirror of you, as well. I'm trying to reboot people's perceptions. [2018]