30 Quotes by Marlene Dumas

Words and images drink the same wine. There is no purity to protect.

If no one goes to gravesides anymore,if you won't visit me there no more,I might as well have my ashes in a jam jarand be more mobile.

The Artwork as MisunderstandingThere is a crisis with regard to Representation. They are looking for Meaning as if it was a thing. As if it was a girl, required to take her panties off as if she would want to do so, as soon as the true interpreter comes along. As if there was something to take off.

I write about my own work because I want to speak for myself. I might not be the only authority, nor the best authority, but I want to participate in the writing of my own history. Why should artists be validated by outside authorities. I don't like being paternalism and colonised by every Tom, Dick or Harry that comes along (male or female).

I write about my own work because I want to speak for myself. I might not be the only authority, nor the best authority, but I want to participate in the writing of my own history. Why should artists be validated by outside authorities. I don't like being paternalised and colonised by every Tom, Dick or Harry that comes along (male or female).

My paintings are not the executions of one idea or emotion that goes from (a) intention to (b) artwork. (Our notions of cause and effect are also in bad shape.) Drawings are closer and quicker in conveying immediate feelings. The more you move towards paintings, the darker the wood becomes through which Little Red Riding Hood goes, and it's not only the wolf but also the wicked with and the seven dwarfs, Judas and Jesus and the journalists, whom she has to face.

Artwork is not synonymous to intention. It is peculiar that although almost everybody says artworks don't give answers, they seem to be sure that a good work asks questions. It sounds like the other side of the same coin to me.

I like to read about art. It also stimulates me to go and do something totally different in the middle of a sentence, or afterwards, like picking up a paintbrush for example. It is only that due to the overload of art historians, artists and other artrelated people, we are flooded by an overload of insipid writings, to such an extent that when you get to the right thing, you are too tired to read it.

I can see why many visual artists dislike words in artworks. They feelthat words dirty the clear water thathas to reflect the sky. It disturbsthe pleasure of the silent image,the freedom from history, the beautyof nameless forms.(...)I know that neither images nor words,can escape the drunkenness andlonging caused by the turningof the world. Words and images drink the same wine.There is no purity to protect.