63 Quotes by Ellsworth Kelly

Time has always been very important in my work.

I started doing sculpture in 1959. I had no commissions then. They were painted, similar in style to the paintings... At a certain point, I decided I didn't want an edge between two colors, I wanted color differences in literal space.

I sometimes don't try to invent something. I wait for some kind of a direction - and it happens. I get an angle, for instance, and it just appears, and I say, 'Oh my God - that's it!'

I learned my color in Europe. I've always been a colorist, I think. I started when I was very young, being a bird-watcher, fascinated by the bird colors.

In Boston, I developed my eye from the drawing. In Paris, I was fascinated by what my eye saw in the way that Paris is built, its 'measure.'

I'm not an Expressionist. I love to look at de Kooning, but I've got this kind of secret life, and that is something that pleases me. I have to try and make something out of it.

I'm interested in the space between the viewer and the surface of the painting - the forms and the way they work in their surroundings. I'm interested in how they react to a room.

I only like artists older than myself. Time is so important. It's always been the same way, I guess.

I like to be able to get swift curves in the plant drawings that are usually drawn in five to ten minutes.