The essence of art is to recapturel the fantasy and the imagination of a child again, but without the innocence of a child.

If you're any kind of artist, you make a miraculous journey, and you come back and make some statements in shapes and colors of where you were.

When I conjure these memories, they are of the present to me, because after all, the artist is a kind of enchanter in time.

You should always respect what you are and your culture because if your art is going to mean anything, that is where it comes from.

Painting is a self-disciplined activity that you have to learn by yourself.

The most difficult object in painting is yourself because you're always at issue

What I've attempted to do is establish a world through art in which the validity of my Negro experience could live and make its own logic.