Chuck Close
Chuck Close
Charles Thomas "Chuck" Closeis an American painter/artist and photographer who achieved fame as a photorealist, through his massive-scale portraits. Close often paints abstract portraits, that are shown in the world's finest galleries. Although a catastrophic spinal artery collapse in 1988 left him severely paralyzed, he has continued to paint and produce work that remains sought after by museums and collectors. Close lives and works in Bridgehampton, New York and Long Beach, NY and New York City's East Village. His first...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPhotographer
Date of Birth5 July 1940
CityMonroe, WA
CountryUnited States of America
I did some pastels and I did other pieces in which there was just basically one color per square, and then they would get bigger and I could get 2 or 3 colors into the square, and ultimately I just started making oil paintings.
I don't want the viewer to be able to peel away the layers of my painting like the layers of an onion and find that all the blues are on the same level.
I don't care about the Guggenheim. The Guggenheim isn't involved in anything that I am interested in. I don't care about motorcycles and Armani suits.
I didn't want a model in the room for three or four months. It would drive me crazy, drive them crazy. But also, they gain weight, they lose weight, their hair gets long, they cut it short, they're awake, they're asleep. And a painting becomes the mean average of all those conditions. I simply looked at photography as a way to jot down the information.
I don't do commissioned portraits and I don't paint college presidents. I can't imagine what kind of ego it would take to want to have a 9-foot-high picture of yourself.
No one was more surprised than me when my paintings started selling, except maybe my dealer.
Women in general interest me. I like how women are more liable to talk about real things, personal things.
I tried to, with a series of self-imposed limitations, back myself into my own personal corner where nobody else's answers would fit. I've always thought that problem-solving is highly overrated and that problem creation is far more interesting.
Painting is the frozen evidence of a performance.
I don't believe in inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs. Some of the time you know you're cooking, and the rest of the time, you just do it.
Once I started working with the Polaroid, I would take a shot and if that shot was good, then I'd move the model and change the lighting or whatever... slowly sneaking up on what I wanted rather than having to predetermine what it was.
I'm very learning-disabled, and I think it drove me to what I'm doing.
It's always a pleasure to talk about someone else's work.
I build a painting by putting little marks together-some look like hot dogs, some like doughnuts.