“I think you could make a very strong case that [Robert Irwin] is one of the 10 most important living American artists, and of those he’s probably the least well known,” from the New York Times article “Robert Irwin’s Big Visions, Barely Seen”
Robert Irwin is described himself as an artist that “got hooked on my own curiosity and decided to live it.” This seems like one of the best paths to sustainable creativity that I can imagine. Eventually Irwin’s work dealt explicitly with light, space, and perception. Irwin is known for his site-specific, installation-based, perception-centric art. His work employs materials as diverse as theatre scrim, fluorescent light, string, colored and reflective glass. Later his work would encompass site-planning, and include landscaping and plants.
Irwin describes that even large projects he had planned, designed, and budgeted fell through for decades, only now is the art-world returning to Robert Irwin’s perceptive, sensitive, rich mindful work. Irwin has continued to combine intellect and wonder.
Further reading; Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees the pre-eminent text on Irwin, and one of my personal favorites, very informative, very human, and inspiring.
& here is Robert Irwin in his own words (artists in their own words are an invaluable resource, and one of my favorite things, text or audio, this is a lot of time to invest in, but even as background or scanning through):
creatingpraxis 
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