I think you have to control the materials to an extent, but it's important to let the materials have a kind of power for themselves; like the natural power of gravity, if you are painting on a wall, it makes the paint trickle and it drips; there is no reason to fight that.
Interpretation
Art involves a balance between control and letting natural elements influence the outcome.
In this quote, Keith Haring emphasizes the importance of allowing the inherent qualities of the materials used in artistic expression to play a role in the final work. Instead of strictly controlling every aspect, he suggests that artists should embrace and work with the natural forces at play, such as gravity affecting paint, to create a more organic and liberated form of art.
In practice
An artist's statement at a gallery opening discussing their techniques.
I am intrigued with the shapes people choose as their symbols to create a language. There is within all forms a basic structure, an indication of the entire object with a minimum of lines that becomes a symbol. This is common to all languages, all people, all times.
The act of creation is a kind of ritual. The origins of art and human existence lie hidden in this mystery of creation. Human creativity reaffirms and mystifies the power of 'life.
When it is working, you completely go into another place, you're tapping into things that are totally universal, completely beyond your ego and your own self. That's what it's all about.
Drawing is still basically the same as it has been since prehistoric times. It brings together man and the world. It lives through magic.
I don't think art is propaganda; it should be something that liberates the soul, provokes the imagination and encourages people to go further. It celebrates humanity instead of manipulating it.
My contribution to the world is my ability to draw. I will draw as much as I can for as many people as I can for as long as I can.
I realized at a young age that sequence in an album is almost as important as the songs that are on the album.
There's no diploma in the world that declares you as an artist—it's not like becoming a doctor. You can declare yourself an artist and then figure out how to be an artist.
Artists in general never stay in the same place; we keep growing. It's still you: you still have that core that you always had, but you work with new people and hear new things.
She died with a knife in her hand in her kitchen, where she had cooked for fifty years, and the death was solemnly listed in the newspaper as that of an artist.
A masterpiece... may be unwelcome but it is never dull.
The only pictures worth making are the ones that are playing with fire.
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