The painting is not on a ...

The painting is not on a surface, but on a plane which is imagined. It moves in a mind. It is not there physically at all. It is an illusion, a piece of magic, so that what you see is not what you see.
The painting is not on a surface, but on a plane which is imagined. It moves in a mind. It is not there physically at all. It is an illusion, a piece of magic, so that what you see is not what you see.
 Philip Guston

More phrases

Being self-made is a state of mind, and once you put that mentality to work, your success will come.
 Dave East
A lot of people change for good. Some people just fall off. Just trying to progress in anything, no matter what you're doing, I feel like any progression you make... some people aren't gonna be around you that were around you.
 Dave East
What a distressing contrast there is between the radiant intelligence of the child and the feeble mentality of the average adult.
Don't settle in the land of barely enough. That is where you are, it is not who you are. That's your location, it's not your identity. No matter what it looks like, have an abundant mentality.
Everything in your life, every experience, every relationship is a mirror of the mental pattern that is going on inside of you.

Quotes from the same author

When I see people making 'abstract' painting, I think it's just a dialogue and a dialogue isn't enough. That is to say, there is you painting and this canvas. I think there has to be a third thing; it has to be a trialogue.
 Philip Guston
Where do you put a form? It will move all around, bellow out and shrink, and sometimes it winds up where it was in the first place. But at the end it feels different, and it had to make the voyage. I am a moralist and cannot accept what has not been paid for, or a form that has not been lived through.
 Philip Guston
Frustration is one of the great things in art. Satisfaction is nothing.
 Philip Guston
Sometimes I scrape off a lot. You have on the floor, like cow dung in the field, this big glob of paint... and it's just a lot of inert matter, inert paint. Then I look back at the canvas, and it's not inert - it's active, moving and living.
 Philip Guston
Usually I draw in relation to my painting, what I am working on at the time. On a lucky day a surprising balance of forms and spaces will appear... making itself, the image taking hold. This in turn moves me toward painting - anxious to get to the same place, with the actuality of paint and light.
 Philip Guston