Quotes by James Turrell

James Turrell

[My work] is using light as a material to influence or affect the medium of perception. I feel that I want to use light as this wonderful and magic elixir that we drink as Vitamin D through the skin – and I mean, we are literally light-eaters – to then affect the way that we see.

Light

Magic

Mean

I always wanted to make a light that looks like the light you see in your dream. Because the way that light infuses the dream, the way the atmosphere is colored, the way light rains off people with auras and things like that…We don’t normally see light like that. But we all know it. So this is no unfamiliar territory – or not unfamiliar light. I like to have this kind of light that reminds us of this other place we know.

Dream

Light

Rain

I am not an Earth artist, I’m totally involved in the sky.

Artist

Earth

Sky

I like when you feel like you arrive in a very different place, with a different ordering of the reality you normally think of.

Different

Reality

Thinking

I make spaces that apprehend light for our perception, and in some ways gather it, or seem to hold it…my work is more about your seeing than it is about my seeing, although it is a product of my seeing.

Creativity

Light

Photography

I want to create an atmosphere that can be consciously plumbed with seeing, like the wordless thought that comes from looking in a fire.

Atmosphere

Design

Fire

I wanted the light to be the revelation. It has to do with what we value. I want people to treasure light.

Light

People

Treasure

I was maybe 5 or 6, and my grandmother would begin sitting me in the Quaker meeting house. I asked my grandmother, ‘What am I supposed to do?’ and she said, ‘Just wait, we’re going inside to greet the light.’ I liked that—this idea to go inside to find that light within, literally as well as figuratively.

Grandmother

Ideas

Light

I’m known as a light artist. But rather than be someone who depicted light, or painted light in some way, I wanted to have the work be light.

Artist

Light

Way

I’ve always felt that night doesn’t fall. Night rises. There are these incidences in flying where you just sit there. It’s one of the best seats in the house.

Fall

House

Night

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Animal

Art

Artist

Atmosphere

Beautiful

Color

Creativity

Days Off

Design

Desire

Different

Dream

Drink

Earth

Eight

Fall

Felt

Fire

Focus

Grandmother

House

Ideas

Important

Interesting

Light

Magic

Mean

Night

Objects

Order

Painting

Particular

People

Photography

Powerful

Pyramids

Rain

Reality

Records

Revelations

Situation

Skins

Sky

Space

Sweet

Taste

Technology

Thinking

Treasure

Vegas

The Future Blueprint

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The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

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Quotes by James Turrell

James Turrell

[My work] is using light as a material to influence or affect the medium of perception. I feel that I want to use light as this wonderful and magic elixir that we drink as Vitamin D through the skin – and I mean, we are literally light-eaters – to then affect the way that we see.

I am not an Earth artist, I’m totally involved in the sky.

I like when you feel like you arrive in a very different place, with a different ordering of the reality you normally think of.

I make spaces that apprehend light for our perception, and in some ways gather it, or seem to hold it…my work is more about your seeing than it is about my seeing, although it is a product of my seeing.

I want to create an atmosphere that can be consciously plumbed with seeing, like the wordless thought that comes from looking in a fire.

I wanted the light to be the revelation. It has to do with what we value. I want people to treasure light.

I’m known as a light artist. But rather than be someone who depicted light, or painted light in some way, I wanted to have the work be light.

I’ve always felt that night doesn’t fall. Night rises. There are these incidences in flying where you just sit there. It’s one of the best seats in the house.

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Topics by James Turrell

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The Future Blueprint

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

The Autobiography

The Behaviour Diary

The Dating Diary

The Relationship Therapist

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