Currin Quotes & Sayings

If I could act like This was my real life, And not some cage where I've been placed, Well then, I could tell you The truth like I used to And not be afraid of sounding fake. — Conor Oberst

After all, just because you're at the office is no reason to stop thinking. — Anonymous

It wasn't really until after I got out of art school that I realized that I'd been doing that sort of for the audience, for that context. Somehow, being alone in the room, it made no sense at all to make those kinds of paintings. — John Currin

Today is the best day to be compassionate and kind.
Extend your hand, open your heart with a sympathetic mind.
Be the symbol of love, kindness, and compassion. — Debasish Mridha

It's a huge thing when people realize across the culture that paper money is paper. And that there's no fixed value - it's all political. That all value is set by a political authority, basically. — John Currin

I think a lot of people take a scholarly approach where they feel like you're supposed to study things that depress you. — John Currin

I find I can't get rid of my trashiness as an artist. A lot of my themes in painting, to the extent that there are intentional themes, are meant to bring that conundrum into high relief. — John Currin

There is a fascination with violence and power in all modernism, and I sort of saw classic modernism as being more similar to Wyndham Lewis than to the Renaissance. It's not about flow and the presence of humanism and all those things. — John Currin

There is, literally and figuratively, not a gold standard. That's almost as big a problem in art as in the financial world. How do you affix a value to something that only has value because a certain number of people agree to believe in that value? — John Currin

Painting is like being a lawyer and attacking a corporation. — John Currin

There's nothing worse than people talking about theories and humor. — John Currin

Like many other simple-hearted souls, it was her pet vanity to believe she was endowed with a talent for dark and mysterious diplomacy, and she loved to contemplate her most transparent devices as marvels of low cunning. Said — Mark Twain

Your style is who you are when you're not trying to be clever or better than you actually are. — John Currin

Instead of last man standing, it'll be last man smiling. — John Currin

Culture is for old people. When you're young you have your body, and that's all you need, — John Currin

A lot of times maturing as an artist is just starting to do the things you like to do. — John Currin

Move it or lose it, lose it and you'll learn from it, but never give up. — Auliq Ice

I think a big problem with art school is that it makes people feel like they have to be interested in everything that's of high quality. — John Currin

A painting of any quality is always going to have nerdy energy, an affirmation behind it. It's gonna be like a kid playing a video game. — John Currin

Before we can change anything in our life, we have to recognize that this is the way it is meant to be right now. For me, acceptance has become what I call the long sigh of the soul. It's the closed eyes in prayer, perhaps even the quiet tears. It's "all right," as in "All right, You lead, I'll follow." And it's "all right" as in "Everything is going to turn out all right." This is simply part of the journey ... — Sarah Ban Breathnach

That was an important development for me, just realizing that you need to follow your pleasure, at least as a painter. I think any kind of artist needs to, no matter what you're doing. — John Currin

I'd like to get the sex thing over with, but I realized I'm not done with it.You should never will a change in your work-you have to work an idea to death. I often find that the best things happen when you're near the end. — John Currin

I've always found paintings of nudes depressing because they can't compete with photographs. The grainiest photograph of some girl, a blurry Polaroid - you'd rather look at that than the Venus de Milo, because you think, Wow, that's really somebody ... This camera really was in front of this real naked lady. — John Currin

The psychotherapist learns little or nothing from his successes. They mainly confirm him in his mistakes, while his failures, on the other hand, are priceless experiences in that they not only open up the way to a deeper truth, but force him to change his views and methods. — Carl Jung

We're dumber and less cognitively nimble if we're not around other people - and, now, other machines. — Clive Thompson

Error is to truth as sleep is to waking. I have observed that one turns, as if refreshed, from error back to truth. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

You have to like everything that you're painting. Maybe on a narrative level it seems harsh ... but I like everything in all my paintings. It's as if you need to be less intelligent at that level. — John Currin

I suppose the good artists, the righteous artists, somehow manage to be exuberant, and the embarrassed artist has this idea that everybody has to stop being so excited, which I find so distasteful. — John Currin

Do not ruin today with mourning tomorrow. — Catherynne M Valente

There is no misery in art. All art is about saying yes, and all art is about its own making. - John Currin — Austin Kleon

John Currin's exaggerated realism and his twisted women kept me off balance, never knowing if they were sincere or ironic or some new emotion. — Jerry Saltz

The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told;
I hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart ... — William Butler Yeats

The price of meat has just gone up and your old lady has just gone down. — Frank Zappa

In a capitalist system, things are valued by what people will pay for them. — John Currin

I've always been drawn to tormented people full of contradictions. — Antonio Tabucchi

Just don't do things that depress you. I realized if it depresses me, then I just don't want to get close to it. If it brings me down, I just really can't get into it. — John Currin

Have faith in God; God has faith in you. — Edwin Louis Cole

I have that working class fear of having nothing. I've always got one eye on what's in the bank. — Jasper Carrott

She reminded me that I could write stories,/
could be struck by lightning & live. — Jen Currin