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

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

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.

Sometimes the mind relives things very clearly for us...There are roads out of secret places within us along which we all must move as we go to touch others.

It was not my aim to paint about the Negro in America in terms of propaganda. It is to depict the life of my people as I know it, passionately and dispassionately as Brueghel.

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.

You don't paint what you see, you paint what you feel.