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.
Some people create with words or with music or with a brush and paints. I like to make something beautiful when I run. I like to make people stop and say, 'I've never seen anyone run like that before.' It's more than just a race, it's a style. It's doing something better than anyone else. It's being creative.
Humanity looks to works of art to shed light upon its path and its destiny.
I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking.
The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake.
To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful. This is power, it is glory on earth and it is yours for the taking.
Every beauty which is seen here by persons of perception resembles more than anything else that celestial source from which we all are come.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.