Painter Arshile Gorky on the endless nature of craftsmanship

vutran | Oct. 30, 2021, 8:21 a.m.

"I don't like that word 'finish'. When something is finished, that means it's dead, doesn't it? I believe in everlastingness. I never finish a painting – I just stop working on it for a while.

I like painting because it's something I never come to the end of. Sometimes I paint a picture, then I paint it all out. Sometimes I'm working on fifteen or twenty pictures at the same time. I do that because I want to – because I like to change my mind so often.

The thing to do is always to keep starting to paint, never finishing painting."

— Arshile Gorky