I don't paint to live, I live to paint.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the deep passion an artist has for their craft, indicating that their existence revolves around creating art.
Willem De Kooning's statement illustrates the profound connection between an artist and their work. It suggests that for true artists, the act of creating is not merely a means of survival but a vital aspect of their identity and essence. This compulsion to create speaks to the dedication and devotion that artists have towards their art, highlighting how it infuses their lives with purpose and meaning.
In practice
An artist might use this quote during an art exhibition to convey their dedication to their craft.
I paint the way I do because I can keep on putting more and more things in - like drama, pain, anger, love, a figure, a horse, my ideas of space. It doesn't matter if it differs from mine, as long as it comes from the painting, which has its own integrity and intensity.
The attitude that nature is chaotic and that the artist puts order into it is a very absurd point of view, I think. All that we can hope for is to put some order into ourselves.
Spiritually I am wherever my spirit allows me to be, and that is not necessarily in the future... Art never seems to make me peaceful or pure.
Im not someone whos ever said anything definitive about his work. In my life also I have very little fixed form. I can change overnight.
Art should not have to be a certain way.
My interest in desperation lies only in that sometimes I find myself having become desperate. Very seldom do I start out that way. I can see of course that, in the abstract, thinking and all activity is rather desperate.
If all meanings could be adequately expressed by words, the arts of painting and music would not exist.
When we paint, whether it is on our bodies for ceremony or on bark or canvas for the market, we're not just painting for fun or profit, we're painting as we always have done to demonstrate our continuing link with our country and the rights and responsibilities we have to it.
Use anger to emotionalize whatever thing you intend to do in life - being a painter, a poet or a photographer
The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art - and, by analogy, our own experience - more, rather than less, real to us. The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means.
As a child, I was taught that it was bad manners to bring attention to yourself, and to never, ever make a spectacle of yourself ... All of which I've earned a living doing.
One must withdraw for a time from life in order to set down that picture.
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