My aim is to escape from the medium with which I work.

At 18 I began painting steadily fulltime and at age 20 had my first New York show at the Macbeth Gallery.

I think a person permeates a spot, and a lost presence makes the environment timeless to me, keeps an area alive. It pulsates because of that.

To be interested solely in technique would be a very superficial thing to me. If I have an emotion, before I die, that's deeper than any emotion that I've ever had, then I will paint a more powerful picture that will have nothing to do with just technique, but will go beyond it.

It's a moment that I'm after, a fleeting moment, but not a frozen moment.

I surrender to the world of my imagination, reenacting all those wonderful tales my father would read aloud to me. I became a very active reader, especially history and Shakespeare.

I don't think that there is anything that is really magical unless it has a terrifying quality.