Fernando Botero

I love my country, and it hurts not to be able to see my country, as I did for so many years. I hope that I will one day be able to live in a peaceful Colombia. ”

Art should be an oasis: a place or refuge from the hardness of life. ”

Nobody ever told me, 'Art is this.' This was good luck in a way because I would have had to spend half of my life forgetting everything that I had been told, which is what happens with most students in schools of fine arts. ”

I had wanted to be a sculptor throughout life, but to do so, I had to stop painting. ”

Expression without culture is flat. Many artists come out of art school and start doing things that don't last. They are audacious because of ignorance. They are irresponsible. ”

I was drawing a mandolin, and I made the sound hole very small, which made the mandolin look gigantic. I saw that making the details small made the form monumental. So in my figures, the eyes, the mouth are all small, and the exterior form is huge. ”

The circus is a global theme. It exists in all parts of the world - maybe not in Africa, but it exists in Asia in all parts. In Latin America, it's difficult to find a person who hasn't gone to the circus. ”

You paint what you know best; what you went through as a teenager and child. My world is the one I got to know in Medellin; I never paint anything else other than that. ”

I believe that it's better to have a conviction, believe strongly in something, and then the convictions create a style that reflects your mentality. ”

Sketching is almost everything. It is the painter's identity, his style, his conviction, and then color is just a gift to the drawing. ”