Robert Genn Quotes

Art is a path on which we honour our world.

So who are we going to blame for our disappointments and our failures?

No matter what your disciplines, you need your own personal lists.

While this may seem peculiar, the combo of work and distraction leads to levels of innovation not often generated by structured, focused thinking alone.

According to Mednick, after sleep, people are 33 percent more likely to be creative.

A drawing a day keeps the cobwebs away.

It's okay to doubt. It's important to test. The way to discover secrets is to be a student of your own efforts.

Artists are supposed to be the ones with imagination. A good part of our job description is to get regular people to use theirs.

When you sit down to paint or draw, you form yourself into a posture of praise

Canned reference is practically always loaded with problems. Photos, for example, contrive to kill imagination and stifle the natural development of creative patterns. While "ready-mades" do show up from time to time, they are rare. Art need not be what is seen-but what is to be seen. "Nature," said James McNeill Whistler, "is usually wrong."

Whatever you do, don't let your system run you.

Our bodies, apart from their brilliant role as drawing exercises, are the temples of our being. Like the bodies of all fauna, they deserve both our study and our appreciation.

I always thought signing was an artist's honour and guarantee of authenticity.

In painting you cover up your sins and everyone thinks you're naturally talented.

Never forget that the nurturing and preservation of your own muse is job one. Lose it and you may be losing a great deal.

I do know, for most of us, the very best of times are when you're in your own space sweating, trying to squeeze quality out of imperfect capabilities.

The job of art is to turn time into things.

God may work in light, but we mortals work in pigment.

Passion is the force that springs an artist from the needling cushion of depression.

You're right, super-realism is back in style.

The studio is an extension of the sandbox and the kindergarten playroom. It has a dynamic unlike any office or factory. It's a room at the service of a dreamer on her way to becoming a master.

More than any other colour, red is loaded for action.

The only bad studio is the unused one.

Waiting for inspiration is for amateurs; professionals get to work.

Art, because it's so easy to do, and yet so difficult to do well, encourages humility in the human soul.

Artists with serious aspirations need to be left alone to follow the course of their own imagination.

Abstraction generally involves implication, suggestion and mystery, rather than obvious description.

When you serve your passions, proficiency gradually takes over and becomes habitual.

As you do your work, you discover what you love to do.

Dogs are angels sent from heaven in order to help us to be better people.

Abstract understanding doesn't mean arbitrary sloshing and messing. Abstract art is controlled visual magic based on laws and methodology. Abstraction generally involves implication, suggestion and mystery rather that obvious description. Like a good poem, a good abstraction attacks your feelings before your understanding. Abstraction within realism adds zest and excitement to otherwise dull subject matter. Abstract understanding takes time and patience.

Which is better--feeling good or getting good?

Art is a path on which we honour our world. Art may not be the only path, but it is a good path, even though at times a difficult one. As bearers of this honour, we artists do not need to simply render our world as we see it but as we might ourselves redesign it. As artists, one of our privileges is to invent.

The thing about art is that life is in no danger of being meaningless.

It is necessary to put yourself out for rejection, and accept that you will be rejected.