Joel-Peter Witkin Quotes

“I've come to realize that the mark is the primal gesture, the internal connection of the caveman to the cosmos; an impossibility similar to an impulse in an insect's nervous system that it could somehow reduce to dust a steel beam by endlessly crawling over it.”

— Joel-Peter Witkin

“I have consecrated my life to changing matter into spirit with the hope of someday seeing it all.”

— Joel-Peter Witkin

“Artists are the people among us who realize creation didn't stop on the sixth day.”

— Joel-Peter Witkin

“Extreme things are like miracles. Nothing is as boring as a person who is just okay.”

— Joel-Peter Witkin

“I never photograph anything I don't believe in. If I love working with death, it's because even in death I find this power of reality that no sculptor or painter could recreate, not even a Michelangelo or a Da Vinci.”

— Joel-Peter Witkin

“People who hate what I make hate me, too. They must think I am a demon or some kind of evil sorcerer. Those who understand what I do appreciate the determination, love, and courage it takes to find wonder and beauty in people who are considered by society to be damaged, unclean, dysfunctional, or wretched.”

— Joel-Peter Witkin

“If there is pain in my photographs, it relates to the pain in my own existence.”

— Joel-Peter Witkin

“To me extreme things are like miracles. There is nothing as boring as a person who is just okay. But I could easily live in a world populated with these disjunctive, bizarre things ... I operate out of confusion, towards clarity.”

— Joel-Peter Witkin

“I could easily live in a world populated with disjunctive, bizarre things ...”

— Joel-Peter Witkin

My work would have the impact of my unreality - my doubts ...

— Joel-Peter Witkin

“My purpose is to acknowledge the wonder of being part of Creation. Though I myself don't create anything, I make from what has been created.”

— Joel-Peter Witkin

“I wanted my photographs to be as powerful as the last thing a person sees or remembers before death.”

— Joel-Peter Witkin