1
I don't want my work to be an exposure of my feelings.Jasper Johns
2
Old art offers just as good a criticism of new art as new art offers of old.Jasper Johns
3
Art is either a complaint or appeasement.Jasper Johns
4
My experience with life is that it's very fragmented. In one place certain kinds of thing occur, and in another place a different kind of thing occurs. I would like my work to have some vivid indication of those differences. I guess, in painting, it would amount to different kinds of space being represented in it.Jasper Johns
5
I think that one wants from a painting a sense of life. The final suggestion, the final statement, has to be not a deliberate statement but a helpless statement. It has to be what you can't avoid saying.Jasper Johns
6
In my early work, I tried to hide my personality, my psychological state, my emotions. This was partly due to my feelings about myself and party due to my feelings about painting at the time. I sort of stuck to my guns for a while but eventually it seemed like a losing battle. Finally one must simply drop the reserve.Jasper Johns
7
A not complete unit or a new unit. The elements in the 3 parts should neither fit nor not fit together. One would like not to be led. Avoid the idea of a puzzle which could be solved. Remove the signs of thought. It is not thought which needs showing.Jasper Johns
8
I assumed that everything would lead to complete failure, but I decided that didn't matter — that would be my life.Jasper Johns
9
As one gets older one sees many more paths that could be taken. Artists sense within their own work that kind of swelling of possibilities, which may seem a confusion, or a freedom.Jasper Johns
10
I have no ideas about what the paintings imply about the world. I don't think that's a painter's business. He just paints paintings without a conscious reason.Jasper Johns
11
I wish there were more humor in my work than I see in it.Jasper Johns
12
One likes to think that one anticipates changes in the spaces we inhabit, and our ideas about space.Jasper Johns
13
When something is new to us, we treat it as an experience. We feel that our senses are awake and clear. We are alive.Jasper Johns
14
I think a painting should include more experience than simply intended statement.Jasper Johns
15
My experience of life is that it's very fragmented; certain kinds of things happen, and in another place, a different kind of thing occurs. I would like my work to have some vivid indication of those differences.Jasper Johns
16
I am not strong on perfection.Jasper Johns
17
As one gets older one sees many more paths that could be taken. Artists sense within their own work that kind of swelling of possibilities, which may seem a freedom or a confusion.Jasper Johns