Quotes from Robert Irwin

When you walk into a room, you assess it instantaneously, habitually, before you're even aware of it. I mean, you make sure there's not a hole you're going to fall into, but mostly you're not even aware of what you're thinking.

It's a constant, continuous, spectacular world we live in, and every day you see things that just knock you out, if you pay attention.

The thing about a plant is, let's say it will have 50 or 100 little points of bright red. If you look at the thing as it goes down, it becomes green in a way... It is way more spectacular than pointillist paintings where these things are played with, but never to the level of what happens in nature.

Every situation has qualities. Essentially, we quantify them and that's the practical side of our lives, so the involvement with perception and in acquiring the perception is our ability to understand qualities. They exist only as long as a human being keeps them in play. They're - Therefore they are akin to energy.

Palms are like cockroaches. They were here long before us, and they'll be here long after us. They're the only things standing after a hurricane.

To be an artist is not a matter of making paintings or objects at all. What we are really dealing with is our state of consciousness and the shape of our perceptions.

There's no way to really mock up or simulate what I'm doing until I'm there. An exhibition for me is not a statement but an experiment.

There's no palette as rich as a garden. And the intensity of it - I make this statement all the time: You can't plan nature; you court her.

Gardening always has been an art, essentially.

It's my observation that gardeners and gardening for a very long time have had to take a back seat. Architects are very famous; they've got huge projects. What goes on in and around them has been relegated to a very minor role.