Untitled Red and Green Drawing 2

"I paint because it's my work. And I paint because I believe it's the best way that I can pass my time as a human being. I paint for myself. I paint for my wife. And I paint for anybody who's willing to look at it. Really at heart for anybody who wants to see it. And when I say see it, I mean see it. I don't just mean look at it. Well, I do everything I can in terms of what I put out for people to look at. I mean I supply them with all the information I possibly can. And they just have to take care of it from there on in. As in anything, you know, like the more responsive, the more open, the more imaginative you are when you deal with something, the much better experience it will be...It's hard to look at paintings. It's really difficult, a very strenuous kind of activity but very, very rewarding. I mean like it's strenuous to listen to a great piece of music. Very complicated. You have to think a lot. You have to be able to bring all sorts of things together in your mind, your imagination, in your whole body. Really get off on it. It's a very high experience. It's something very deep and felt" (B. Marden, interviewed by E. B. Howard, 11 December 1976, reprinted in G. Garrels, "Force of Myself Looking," Plane Image: A Brice Marden Retrospective, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2006, p. 17).