Nathan Oliveira Quotes

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

  Nathan Oliveira

  Recovery, Firsts, Strokes

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• 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].

  Nathan Oliveira

  Reality, Mind, Details

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

  Nathan Oliveira

  Desire, Painting, Paint

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• 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.

  Nathan Oliveira

  Beautiful, Oil, Issues

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

  Nathan Oliveira

  Creating, Metaphor, Figures

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

  Nathan Oliveira

  Looks, Portraiture, Forget

  Nathan Oliveira, Eugenia Parry, Salander-O'Reilly Galleries (1991). “Nathan Oliveira: paintings and works on paper, 1959-1991”

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• 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.

  Nathan Oliveira

  Eye, Europe, Creating

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• 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.

  Nathan Oliveira

  Artist, Unique, Ideas

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