Bram van Velde Quotes

I am in the void. Nothing to hang on to.

At is taking risks.. ..a sincere attempt to achieve the impossible, the unknown.

To be nothing. Just nothing. It’s a frightening experience. You have to let go of everything.

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

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.

A painter is somebody who sees. I paint the moment when I set out. When I set out to see. And it’s the same thing for the viewer. When he approaches the canvas, he is advancing towards an encounter. The encounter with vision.

I don't like talking. I don’t like people talking to me.. .Painting is silence.

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.

An artist’s life is all very fine and moving. But only in retrospect. In books.

Of course painting is ridiculous. But it’s the only way I've got to get closer to life.

Oh Baudelaire.. .He used to be enormously important to me. It's thanks to him that I was able to get through the war [in Paris, during 1940 – 1945 Van Velde had a long and painful break, with only a few paintings he finished]. A true loyal mind without hypocrisy. The most universal spirit. The greatest Frenchman. I have always been much less interested in painters [than Baudelaire - a great surprise to hear for Charles Juliet the interviewer].

Life is wrecked by living.

The artist is the bearer of life.

Through painting I try to get closer to nothingness, to the void.

Each time it’s an attempt to get there. To get to see. To get where you can see.