I've never read a book on shape. I've read books on gesture; I've read tons of books on color, surface, field, ground, representation, abstraction. But I've never read a book on what a shape is.

At some point, I get a weird feeling, and that's when I know it's done. I probably ruin a lot of really perfectly fine things. So part of working on paper, and trying to work really fast, is to see if I can expand the area of not being driven by taste. Not saying, "This looks good, I'll stop."

The works have to look like they're confident. But they also have to look sort of troubled. It's this weird thing: "Does that look confident and troubled?" It's a bit like difficult poetry.

It's more this instinct to get in trouble, and then get myself out of trouble. That's what painting is for me.

You can make a beautiful thing, but there's no problem in it. I like the idea of doing a thing, wrecking a thing, questioning a thing to the point where you have pushed it to the edge, and then recuperating it.

In my work, we're not looking at an icon, we're not looking at a sign, we're not looking at a representation. We're looking at something. I do have this feeling of trust that people can read it for themselves.

All accidents and experiments, and discoveries, are what my work is about. The problem that I have as an artist is being way too critical.