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Marlene Dumas Quotes

Artist

Marlene Dumas is a South African-born contemporary artist known for her portraits that often explore themes of race, gender, and social issues with a strong emotional and critical perspective.

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All Art Painting Best Work Drawing Erotic Lasts Pain Painter Shows Thinking

Famous Marlene Dumas Quotes

“The demi-monde does not represent the crowd of courtesans, but the class of declassed women It is divided from that of honest women by public scandal, and divided from that of the courtesans by money.”

Doe Class Honest Crowds Divided Scandal Courtesans Honest Woman

Author:Marlene Dumas

“I am against: general ideas / the nude / the appropriation of images / the mystification of the untitled / the glorification of artistic doubt / the fuzzy edges of sensitivity / old sins / and useless guilt.”

Ideas Sin Doubt Guilt Edges Complaining Artistic Useless Sensitivity Appropriation Fuzzy Glorification

Author:Marlene Dumas

“Drawings are only a few lines on paper. Therefore it's easy to carry around in plastic bags. Drawings are cheaper than paintings. They don't pretend they'll last forever.”

Lasts Easy Lines Forever Painting Paper Drawing Bags Plastic Cheaper Plastic Bags

Author:Marlene Dumas

“My best works are erotic displays of mental confusions.. with intrusions of irrelevant information.”

Information Confusion Display Irrelevant Erotic Best Work Intrusion

Author:Marlene Dumas

“What a funny thing painting is. The abstract painters always insist on their connection with the visible reality, while the so called figurative artists insist that what they really care about, is the abstract qualities of life.”

Art Reality Care Artist Inspiring Quality Painting Connections Painter Abstract Visible Funny Things Quality Of Life

Author:Marlene Dumas

“No painting can exist without the tension of what it figures and what it concretely consists of. The pleasure of what it could mean and the pain of what it's not.”

Mean Pain Pleasure Figures Painting Tension No Pain

Author:Marlene Dumas

“Painting doesn't freeze time. It circulates and recycles time like a wheel that turns. Those who were first might well be last. Painting is a very slow art. It doesn't travel with the speed of light. That's why dead painters shine so bright.”

Firsts Wells Art Light Might Lasts Time Turns Painting Shining Speed Painter Wheels Freeze Brightness Recycling Circulation Wheel Of Time Speed Of Light Freeze Time

Author:Marlene Dumas

“When Black and White are colors and not races, people will still fall in love and discriminate between partners and feel sad and bad and need art that breaks your heart and takes you to those places where pain becomes beauty.”

People Needs Feels Heart Art Stills Pain Fall Black White Race Break Color Falling In Love Partners Black And White Break Your Heart

Book:Marlene Dumas: suspect

Source: Marlene Dumas: suspect

“At the moment my art is situated between the pornographic tendency to reveal everything and the erotic inclination to hide what it's all about.”

Art Moments Art Is Tendencies Inclination Erotic

Book:Marlene Dumas: Intimate Relations

Source: Marlene Dumas: Intimate Relations

“There is no beauty, if it doesn't show some of the terribleness of life.”

Ifs Shows

Author:Marlene Dumas

“I do think that I'm not good at making pretty things. It doesn't come so naturally for me.”

Thinking Pretty Things

Author:Marlene Dumas

“I have always been interested in how you can depict suffering without being heavy-handed.”

Suffering Heavy

Author:Marlene Dumas

“I moved to Holland because I wanted to see American art.”

Art Wanted Moved Holland

Author:Marlene Dumas

“I never learned to ride a bicycle, and it is too late now. I never learned to drive. I never learned to swim.”

Late Too Late Swim Bicycle

Author:Marlene Dumas

“I think I am probably a lot like my father.”

Thinking Father

Author:Marlene Dumas

“I'm always so sick of myself after a show.”

Shows Sick So Sick

Author:Marlene Dumas

“There are these painterly things that happen while I'm working.”

Happens

Author:Marlene Dumas

“The best works do not necessarily get to auction. I like to draw, so maybe I give you a little drawing. And then eventually it ends up at auction. And then critics say, 'Oh, that's a bad drawing!' Well, I didn't say it was so wonderful.”

Giving Wells Littles Ends Wonderful Draws Critics Drawing Best Work Auctions

Author:Marlene Dumas

About the Author

Born: August 3, 1953
Known for: Artist
Quotes: 18

Books & Sources

Marlene Dumas: Intimate RelationsRelated source material

Marlene Dumas: suspectRelated source material

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