Nathan Oliveira Quotes

See the first stroke as a start and everything after that a recovery.

The gesture must be correct. If the gesture is correct, your mind really creates the reality of the figure, and it is not necessary to hang on all the rest [of the details].

For me, painting is that magical material, that beautiful stuff that was invented, the ground-up pigments in oil which makes it very malleable. It can be manipulated and changed, darkened, lightened, given different hues and colors, so that by manipulating this material somehow I can find that figure I'm looking for, that figure that represents all the issues I'm bringing up and addressing.

I had the desire to paint the figure without actually painting the figure.

If a figure doesn't look back at you, you forget it.

What I'm concerned about now is creating a metaphor for what the figure really is.

Though I have considerable interest in Europe and in traveling, I am most content with simply working and allowing the world that I'm creating to unfold before my eyes.

I am not the avant-garde. I am the artist who comes after the advancing guard. I am more concerned with continuity of ideas and tradition than in inventing a unique imagery.