Jasper Johns Quotes

Do something, do something to that, and then do something to that.
Jasper Johns

As one gets older one sees many more paths that could be taken. Artists sense within their own work that kind of swelling of possibilities, which may seem a freedom or a confusion.
Jasper Johns

Work, Freedom, May

I am not strong on perfection.
Jasper Johns

Strong, Perfection

I have no ideas about what the paintings imply about the world. I don't think that's a painter's business. He just paints paintings without a conscious reason.
Jasper Johns

Business, Reason, Ideas

Intention involves such a small fragment of our consciousness and of our mind and of our life.
Jasper Johns

Life, Mind, Small

Most of the power of painting comes through the manipulation of space... but I don't understand that.
Jasper Johns

Power, Through, Understand

The thing is, if you believe in the unconscious - and I do - there's room for all kinds of possibilities that I don't know how you prove one way or another.
Jasper Johns

Another, Room, Kinds

When something is new to us, we treat it as an experience. We feel that our senses are awake and clear. We are alive.
Jasper Johns

Experience, Treat, Alive

At first I had some idea that the absence of color made the work more physical. Early on I was very involved with the notion of the painting as an object and tended to attack that idea from different directions.
Jasper Johns

Work, Different, Made

Everyone is of course free to interpret the work in his own way. I think seeing a picture is one thing and interpreting it is another.
Jasper Johns

Work, Free, Another

I am just trying to find a way to make pictures.
Jasper Johns

Trying, Find, Pictures

I decided that if my work contained what I could identify as a likeness to other work, I would remove it.'
Jasper Johns

Work, Decided, Likeness

I don't know how to organise thoughts. I don't know how to have thoughts.
Jasper Johns

Thoughts, Organise

I don't want my work to be an exposure of my feelings.
Jasper Johns

Work, Feelings, Exposure

I love drawings, so I've always enjoyed making drawings that exist on their own.
Jasper Johns

Love, Making, Exist

I never wish for critics.
Jasper Johns

I often find that having an idea in my head prevents me from doing something else. Working is therefore a way of getting rid of an idea.
Jasper Johns

Find, Working, Else

I tend to like things that already exist.
Jasper Johns

I think a painting should include more experience than simply intended statement.
Jasper Johns

Experience, Painting, Simply

I was raised in South Carolina; I wasn't aware of any art in South Carolina. There was a minor museum in Charleston, which had nothing of interest in it. It showed local artists, paintings of birds.
Jasper Johns

Art, Nothing, Interest

In the place where I was a child, there were no artists and there was no art, so I really didn't know what that meant.
Jasper Johns

Art, Place, Child

In the place where I was a child, there were no artists and there was no art, so I really didn't know what that meant. I think I thought it meant that I would be in a situation different than the one that I was in.
Jasper Johns

Art, Different, Thought

My experience of life is that it's very fragmented; certain kinds of things happen, and in another place, a different kind of thing occurs. I would like my work to have some vivid indication of those differences.
Jasper Johns

Life, Work, Experience

One likes to think that one anticipates changes in the spaces we inhabit, and our ideas about space.
Jasper Johns

Ideas, Space, Changes

One wants one's work to be the world, but of course it's never the world. The work is in the world; it never contains the whole thing.
Jasper Johns

Work, Whole, Wants

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Biography

Nationality: American

Type: Artist

Born: May 15, 1930

Links

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