Bram van Velde Quotes

A painting is not a battle against other people, but against oneself.

Painting is getting in touch with the truth. It's a matter of summoning up the vision I need.

In this world that destroys me, the only thing that I can do is to live my weakness. That weakness is my only strength.

Painting is an aid to vision. It turns life, the complexity of life, into something visible. It reveals things that we don’t know how to see.

Each painting is linked to a fundamental drama.

Everything has to end before it can begin.

Most people's lives are governed by willpower. An artist is someone who has no will.

Waiting for the truth.

Artists who are the defenders of true life become phonies. That’s the perfidious thing about this world. Society turns anyone with a bit of life inside them into a medical case.

I can’t say anything. There are no words.

It is important to see that my paintings are ultimately stimulating. They are not at all the kind of thing that inspires despair.

To be true, you have to take the plunge, to touch bottom. But most people want to be in control. They fear the worst. You can’t control anything. What you have to do is let yourself be taken over.. .All the paintings I have made, I was compelled to make. You must never force yourself.

There's a perpetual duel going on between the world of the spirit and the world of things. Although the one only has meaning in relation to the other.

The greatest moment is when you realize that the painting you've just finished is nothing. When you manage to detach yourself from it.

I am in a thousand pieces. Painting somehow makes me whole.