58 Quotes by Bill Viola

Live your Art. Don't think about it.

Because we live in an industrialized, fast-paced world that prefers that the soul remain asleep.

Live your Art. Don’t think about it.

There’s another world out there just beyond the world we’re in. It’s just on the other side of that translucent, semitransparent surface.

I don’t believe in originality in art. I think we exist on this earth to inspire each other, through our actions, through our deeds, and through who we are. We’re always borrowing.

When I make my work, I am making what I hope to be something functional – a space for individual contemplation and reflection. I want my art to be useful.

A doctor once told me that with crying you aren’t sure what its derivation is. If someone comes at you with a knife, you don’t cry: you scream, you try to run. When it’s over and you’re OK, that’s when you cry.

Since the time of St. Jerome, it was mandatory for any kind of scholar or thinker to spend time out in the desert in solitude. It’s no coincidence that the desert has been a major part of the visionary or mystical experience from the beginning of time.

I think we’re in an age where artists really have an incredible range of materials at their command now. They can use almost anything from household items – Jackson Pollock used house paint – to, you know, advanced computer systems, to good old oil paint and acrylic paint.