I like to make an image that is so simple you can't avoid it, and so complicated you can't figure it out.

I use the iPhone now for information. But with selfies, I don't know what those people are doing. It's like they believe what they see is real, even with the [filters]. And God bless them! But to me, it's not a self-portrait, it's a reality project.

I know people can be a little nervous about swimsuits, but have some fun with it. Believe you can hold it down. If you believe you can hold it down, you can wear it.

Picasso and Matisse were the guys I wanted to get away from, and cubism is all still lifes. Their paintings are all closed drawings. And still life is a perfect form for that. By the mid-'50s, I sort of dropped the still life. The large picture was a way of getting around them, too. The abstract expressionists were also into the large form because it was a way of getting around Matisse and Picasso. Picasso can't paint big paintings. Matisse didn't bother after a certain point.

You have to be a little scared of what you're doing. Otherwise, you just paint the same masterpiece a little worse.

Realist painting has to do with leaving out a lot of detail. I think my painting can be a little shocking in all that it leaves out. But what happens is that the mind fills in what's missing . . . Painting is a way of making you see what I saw.

I like to make an image that is so simple you can't avoid it, and so complicated you can't figure it out.