“There are certain times when a painting accelerates beyond you, and you have to try and understand and catch up with it.” Quote by Nigel Cooke
“I felt like I had reached the end of a period of life, where the work was jumping about and pushing something new every time. I wanted to dial it back and create a language that was stable and deep.” EndsWantedLanguageFeltPeriodsPushingSomething NewStableJumping Author:Nigel Cooke
“Small thoughts grow into a picture. It may suggest an individual or it may suggest a place, but generally the painting's job is to work that [idea] into an abstract proposition that is completely removed from the starting point.” MayIdeasJobsIndividualGrowsPaintingStartingAbstractPropositionsStarting Point Author:Nigel Cooke
“Using painting as a metaphor for consciousness is what I'm interested in.” ConsciousnessPaintingMetaphor Author:Nigel Cooke
“There are absences, but there are also presences. It's about how painting can evolve its own abstractions. I didn't know the painting was going to be about that, but it has to have that journey; I have to learn something, I have to end up somewhere I didn't expect to be, otherwise, I don't think it's painting.” ThinkingKnowsEndsJourneyPaintingAbsenceEvolveAbstraction Author:Nigel Cooke
“The paintings don't exist outside themselves. There's no lead photograph off the internet or anything like that. It all comes from my mind and it's a bit like a little movie each time - how do I get the props, the setting, the time of day, the light, the action.” MindLittlesLightActionBitsPaintingInternetPhotographSettingSettingsPropsTime Of Day Author:Nigel Cooke
“I'm a quiet person, I'm not a flashy art world person. I'm in the studio in the middle of nowhere. There's sheep and fields. The work has to be authentic in that way.” WorldWayPersonsArtMiddleFieldsQuietStudiosSheepArt WorldFlashyMiddle Of NowhereQuiet Person Author:Nigel Cooke
“What really surprised me was how strange my paintings are anyway. To me, it's like, "Let's paint some portraits and some objects. Don't make it weird, just make it dead straight," but it's still weird. I don't know why. I guess it's just the way I see things.” KnowsWayStillsObjectsStrangePaintingPaintPortraits Author:Nigel Cooke
“The moment is never perfect. It's like that right now - in my head I'm being super lucid, but you never are. You're always fumbling.” MomentsPerfectRight Now Author:Nigel Cooke
“There are things that inform the works, but that doesn't go anywhere near what you're actually looking at.” Author:Nigel Cooke
“Questions of such gravity go down to the very foundations of the government. If the provisions of the Constitution can be set aside by an act of Congress, where is the course of usurpation to end?” IfsEndsGovernmentPoliticalCoursesPoliticsConstitutionFoundationCongressGravityProvisionUsurpation Author:Stephen Johnson Field