Fred Tomaselli

“I worked my way through art school as an auto mechanic, doing various stuff including sanding bodywork and using Bondo filler.”

“There are aspects of Asian culture in my work, but it's really rooted in an American experience - transcendentalism, '60s counterculture, punk rock.”

“The small amount of people that control the discourse around painting - I thought that the whole museum world was just a bunch of phonies, and I didn't really want to have anything to do with it. I guess I did installations, in a funny way, because they couldn't be commodified.”

“I wouldn't know any other way to live except to be an artist. I'm not very good at anything else.”

“I'm actually pretty smart when you get to know me.”

“I've come to believe in the primacy of form - the notion of art seducing you through your senses, through your eyeballs.”

“I don't embrace irony, but I do think it's a pre-existing condition; we manage it as best we can.”

“Art is really about perception, and mine have been changed through visiting other realities.”

“I like the idea of multidisciplinary conversations, so in that spirit, I try and make a contribution from the art world into the music world.”

“A lot of people don't think of my work as being all that funny, but I think it's hilarious!”

“I don't know if I'm a populist artist, but I do try to maintain a spirit of generosity.”

“I kind of have a Victorian sensibility - I don't understand stuff until I can classify it and name it.”