Patricia Piccinini Quotes

I certainly don't see the humour in my work as something that detracts from its seriousness. It's just a way of making difficult messages more palatable.

A child came up to me and asked 'am I dreaming?' I had a similar experience coming to the Art Gallery of South Australia when I was a child. My mum had done a workshop here and it stayed with me. It's an important formative time.

I don't set out to make something that is repulsive and that would scare people. I know that some people don't like what I make, and don't find it cute, but that's hard for me to understand.

Melbourne is a fantastic place to work, but it's not the centre of the world.

We always use resin instead of polyurethane, even though it takes more work and is in places where it can't be seen, because resin tends to be more UV stable than urethane.

For me it is a matter of respect for the ideas in the work and the people who look at them. I absolutely hate it when works come back to the studio for repair, and I try to make sure that they never do.

Skywhale is ambiguous. I think she is beautiful, but a lot of people think she is grotesque. You are drawn in and repelled at the same time, and it has to have that dynamic. My work has a certain element of abject mutation, uncertainty and darkness. Even she is dark - I mean she has ten breasts.

Thinking is a social process. I talk to everyone from children to anthropologists and philosophers. I try my ideas out on people and they talk back to you. That's how ideas get formed.