Richard Phillips

“Art is a thing where, the least likely thing that you think is going to be art, is precisely the thing that is going to be art. And I would even hold that true to a reality television show... maybe the entire overarching process of the show actually exists as an artistic structure.”

“I thought the first thing the pirates would do is take me out if they thought an attack was imminent. I really didn't see a good outcome.”

“My work, in a certain way, got started in 1996 when I did an exhibition of thirteen paintings that were solely based on fashion imagery.”

“My favorite film score is the one Thomas Bangalter created for 'Irreversible.' The soundtrack absolutely defines the daymare-into-nightmare feeling you get from the film.”

“When we can't determine what is art - when you get to that point where we're not sure, that's the greatest likelihood that we're actually experiencing something great. But I think that's what the art world is most afraid of, because you lose that security. Then we don't know how to assign evaluation, whether it's cultural or otherwise.”

“Many people are worried about my mental health. But as I've said many times, we're stronger than we think we are.”

“Makeup ignites a psychological transformation of both the wearer and the observer. My paintings sought to locate the subject of art within the manipulation of that altered predisposition.”

“The Merchant Marines fight piracy all over the world. We fight piracy in the Philippines, the east and west coast of Africa, and the east and west coast of South America.”

“The most desirable and appropriate solution to piracy is for the United States government to provide protection through military escorts and/or militant detachments aboard U.S. vessels.”

“I'm not a hero. The military is.”

“I try to get out of an image's way in order to let it articulate what is hidden.”

“Art, unlike the trades in the artistic capacity of fashion and food, can literally be anything. It can be the negation of itself and conceptually not present.”

“Technically, a makeup artist's canvas is the face and body. The difference is that my painting of makeup is integrated into the painting of the flesh and not on top of it. I think in some ways it is more difficult to expressively deploy makeup.”

“Anytime money is your main focus, I think we all come to problems.”

“Being in that other world of media, TV, Hollywood, it's not a real world. For me going back to work, it was a pleasure to get back to the world I knew. That's the real world. That's normal for me.”