Sometime during the mid-50s I said, ‘I am an artist.’ Before that, for many years, I had said, ‘I’m going to be an artist.’ Then I went through a change of mind and a change of heart. What made ‘going to be an artist’ into ‘being an artist’, was, in part, a spiritual change.
The test of the artist does not lie in the will with which he goes to work, but in the excellence of the work he produces.
An artist has no home in Europe except in Paris.
Even though people think I am more of a conceptual artist, I am actually very intuitive. For me, it is still a matter of allowing things to naturally rise to the top of my mental pile, and then I make them.
I don’t have a beef with any female artist.
One day I had an instinct to put on a kaftan and go out and sing. People liked it out of the blue. An artist should be instinctive.
I’m not just a hip-hop artist; I feel like I’m a rock star.
Being in a group, you don’t really get to give an ounce of who you are as a solo artist.
I see a curator as a catalyst, generator and motivator – a sparring partner, accompanying the artist while they build a show, and a bridge builder, creating a bridge to the public.
Any artist should be grateful for a naive grace which puts him beyond the need to reason elaborately.
I am an artist, you understand? For me, a picture is like poetry. When you make art, this is not coming from an intellectual place. It’s coming from the deep side of your unconscious, your soul.
If you’re not an optimist, forget being an artist.
Contrary to general belief, an artist is never ahead of his time but most people are far behind theirs.
As an artist, you want to make good stories and create good art; as a businessman, you want to make money and make sure the investors are happy. The two will always clash, unfortunately.
I think that Curt Swan, when he did Superman for the longest time, became the definitive Superman artist, and everybody got it. That made him very, very special in the annals of comic books.
A solution built by an artist serves the artist more than the solution the capitalist comes up with.
To my mind, it is the duty of the younger Negro artist, if he accepts any duties at all from outsiders, to change through the force of his art that old whispering ‘I want to be white,’ hidden in the aspirations of his people, to ‘Why should I want to be white? I am a Negro – and beautiful!’
For awhile there, I kind of hit the plateau. Anytime you do that as an artist, one of two things can happen… you’re either going to start to fall back off, or you’re gonna start to rise.
I am not a great cook, I am not a great artist, but I love art, and I love food, so I am the perfect traveller.
I believe Kendrick Lamar is not only an artist but an influencer of an entire generation. He represents Compton with great pride, and I am honored to present him with the Key to the City, which symbolizes our deep appreciation for his philanthropic work and commitment to our community.
When a young artist is ready, one has to bring him into the limelight.
An artist is somebody who enters into competition with God.
A great artist is a great man in a great child.
I play piano and guitar and I do write my own stuff so to a certain extent I know what I want to do in regards to music. But I’m still finding out what kind of music is my favourite kind to listen to, never mind do myself so I’ve got a lot of time to find out myself and develop myself as an artist.
Kendrick Lamar is a phenomenal artist whose work has served as a catalyst to raise a new level of consciousness for this generation. His message challenges the status quo and motivates listeners to rethink our society’s institutions.
I love Adele. Adele is my favorite artist. She’s British. She’s funny. She’s just an amazing, incredible voice, and I love to sing as well.
Believe it or not, most people think of me as a recording artist, but actually the way I think of myself and the way I earn my living is as a performing artist.
Few people know that I am also an artist; I truly enjoy sketching and drawing.
The worst thing that being an artist could do to you would be that it would make you slightly unhappy constantly.
As an artist I’d choose the thing that’s beautiful more than the one that’s true.
Hands are the tool of the painter, the artist.
Well, you know, people don’t know me as a country artist and I am new to the genre. But that’s how I grew up singing.
In our life there is a single color, as on an artist’s palette, which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the color of love.
I just tried to be an artist in my own metier.
I don’t think radio is selling records like they used to. They’d hawk the song and hawk the artist and you’d get so excited, you’d stop your car and go into the nearest record store.
I was never a skilled artist or anything like that – never a rebel.
I’m really into the Tom Ford lipsticks. I was always afraid to wear lip color because I thought it made me look too masculine, but my makeup artist Fiona Stiles got me into wearing coral, orange-y colors from his line, and now I wear lipstick all of the time.
I don’t know, samples are just like unlimited ideas, you know? Sometimes a lot of people sample one song. A lot of it is also really just up to the artist and their creativity to see where it goes and what they want to do.
As an artist, you always want to never forget where you come from.
Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.
To protect the right of expression is the central part of an artist’s activity… In China many essential rights are lacking, and I wanted to remind people of this.
Now one thing I think is really lame, is if you’re an artist and you go to a karaoke bar and sing your own song. I like to get up there and sing stuff that I would never sing on stage anywhere else. Like Neil Diamond.
The biggest challenge for any craft person or artist is to accept the constraints of their medium and make something beautiful despite them. That’s kind of fun, actually.
People were more interested in the phenomena than the art itself. This, combined with the growing interest in collecting art as an investment and the resultant boom in the art market, made it a difficult time for a young artist to remain sincere without becoming cynical.
I think every artist’s next work will reflect a new chapter in their autobiography. Each album tells a story about where they were at during a particular period and how they have evolved.
Sorrowful and great is the artist’s destiny.
I wanted to be a prosthetic makeup artist after watching ‘A Nightmare On Elm Street’.
Over the years, I was never really driven to become a solo artist, but I was curious to find out who I was as an individual creative person. It’s taken some time, but now I feel I’ve truly paid my dues. I guess I’m at a point now where I’m more comfortable in my own skin.
Living in a community with very wounded people, I came to see that I had lived most of my life as a tightrope artist trying to walk on a high, thin cable from one tower to the other, always waiting for the applause when I had not fallen off and broken my leg.
Without going outside his race, and even among the better classes with their ‘white’ culture and conscious American manners, but still Negro enough to be different, there is sufficient matter to furnish a black artist with a lifetime of creative work.
God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style, He just goes on trying other things.
If a man wants to be an artist, he must never look at pictures.
Swag defines an artist, period. Lil Wayne has his super-tattooed pierces and dreads swag. Jay-Z has his New York, grown man, Beyonce and 40/40 Club swag.
I think fans acknowledged the effort I have made as a solo artist and as a member of Bigbang throughout the years. It is a very humbling yet gratifying achievement for me.
I fought doing dance music as a solo artist for a long time. I always thought there was a ceiling with it.
I had the most reversed education possible. Every parent wants their son to be a businessman, respectable – me, it was the opposite. When I had an artist career my mum was like, ‘Oh finally, I’m proud of you!’
The artist that had the biggest impact on me was Michael Jackson. He was my Elvis and Beatles. When I was 15, I listened to a lot of Sinatra, but my jean jacket didn’t have, ‘I love Frank’ on it, it had, ‘I love AC/DC’, ‘Guns N Roses’, ‘Pearl Jam’. I thought Eddie Vedder was the second coming.
I just say I’m an artist who works with pictures and words.
I’m Cuban and Puerto Rican and Miami is very Cuban oriented. Growing up around the music – all of the salsa and meringue influenced me as an artist. I find myself gravitating to latin influences, sounds.
Four Tet, a.k.a. Kieran Hebden, is a U.K. electronica artist whose diverse tastes have helped fuel a lengthy discography.
I keep my face covered during concerts. That’s just something that is part of me, an artist, and I think it’s a cool concept and look. It is really inspired by my love for video games, especially with the videogame ‘Watchdog’ that I love.
To be a great artist, you need to know yourself as best as you possibly can. I live my life and delve into my own psyche. It’s more about exploring how I feel rather than making pale imitations of something that came before. We are unique beings, and the way we look at things is our own.
