1.
The self-portrait is an act of objectifying the self and in that regard is a unique form of portraiture.
Burton Silverman
2.
In an era when museum curators were busy introducing the public to photographs of daily life taken by Robert Frank, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Diane Arbus, why did they simultaneously disdain paintings depicting the same kind of people?
Burton Silverman
3.
Very early in life, I fell in love with the landscape of the human face, where all the emotional states of life are to be found.
Burton Silverman
4.
I continue to make paintings of people and their moments in our time because I am of that time. Out of that I hope to make pictures that are timeless.
Burton Silverman
5.
Alas, it is just a single image - an extended moment perhaps. Unlike a biography, a portrait cannot present the many differing moments that make up a personality.
Burton Silverman
6.
I hope that we can bridge the worlds of appearances and of insights, and thus rescue art from triviality, from 'sensation' alone.
Burton Silverman
7.
I love an art which allows me to document my place in this mix... This is my past and my future. It has its own logic and finally, its own sense of fulfillment.
Burton Silverman
8.
I am stuck with my passion for the objective world, for the constantly shifting shades of meaning to the events of my life, to the states of being of the people I paint, and to the persistent need to get it right.
Burton Silverman
9.
The beginning of a painting is a very energized, exciting time, and it generates most of the energy I have. If I've gotten 75 per cent of it down, then it takes an effort to really get up that kind of energy to finish it in the same way it's begun.
Burton Silverman
10.
I do not believe that the way paint is applied should be more important than what is portrayed.
Burton Silverman
11.
We do not see everything in the environment in the complete, totally resolved, explicit character of the photograph. We, in fact, prioritize our seeing.
Burton Silverman
12.
My best training came from doing illustrations because it taught me to compose my paintings more effectively, to improve my colors, and to be ruthlessly selective.
Burton Silverman
13.
I love the fact that there are more and more young people out there who still want to make a flat two-dimensional surface come alive with three dimensional magic.
Burton Silverman
14.
Artists must literally go into a zone of intense seeing so the subjective and objective almost fuse together.
Burton Silverman
15.
I am wedded to who I am.
Burton Silverman
16.
I love the fact that this art might somehow affect the way people see, and thus open a window on the world.
Burton Silverman