My popularity has to do with the divorce between modern art, where everything is obscure, and the viewer who often feels he needs a professor to tell them whether it's good or not. I believe a painting has to talk directly to the viewer, with composition, color and design, without a professor to explain it.

People say, 'What a discipline, painting so much.' I say, 'No, I love it.' Nothing amuses me as much as my work. To have discipline would be not to paint.

My work is a self-portrait of my mind, a prism of my convictions.

Fernando Botero Quotes