Jasper Johns
Jasper Johns
Jasper Johnsis an American painter and printmaker...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPop Artist
Date of Birth15 May 1930
CityAugusta, GA
CountryUnited States of America
certain experience indication kinds life vivid work
My experience of life is that it's very fragmented; certain kinds of things happen, and in another place, a different kind of thing occurs. I would like my work to have some vivid indication of those differences.
art aware interest local minor museum paintings raised south
I was raised in South Carolina; I wasn't aware of any art in South Carolina. There was a minor museum in Charleston, which had nothing of interest in it. It showed local artists, paintings of birds.
change mind sometime
Sometime during the mid-50s I said, 'I am an artist.' Before that, for many years, I had said, 'I'm going to be an artist.' Then I went through a change of mind and a change of heart. What made 'going to be an artist' into 'being an artist', was, in part, a spiritual change.
Do something, do something to that, and then do something to that.
course interpret picture work
Everyone is of course free to interpret the work in his own way. I think seeing a picture is one thing and interpreting it is another.
bad consider extreme good interest might ways work
What you might consider a bad work can be of extreme interest to an artist in ways which are not about its being a good or bad.
humor work
I wish there were more humor in my work than I see in it.
knew none somewhere
The only logical thing I can think of is that I knew there were such things as artists, and I knew there were none where I lived. So I knew that to be an artist you had to be somewhere else. And I very much wanted to be somewhere else.
bring condition image knew nearer seemed time wanting
This image of wanting to be an artist - that I would in some way become an artist -was very strong. I knew for a long, long time that that's what I would be. But nothing I ever did seemed to bring me any nearer to the condition of being an artist. And I didn't know how to do it.
self-esteem self description
To me, self-description is a calamity.
want way cubism
Cubism is an anatomical chart of a way of seeing external objects. But I want to confuse the meaning of the act of looking.
eye focus sometimes
Sometimes I see it and then paint it. Other times I paint it and then see it. Both are impure situations, and I prefer neither. At every point in nature there is something to see. My work contains similar possibilities for the changing focus of the eye.
ideas way
I often find that having an idea in my head prevents me from doing something else. Working is therefore a way of getting rid of an idea.
feelings want exposure
I don't want my work to be an exposure of my feelings.