When you're not smoking anymore, you don't have to carry around a pack of cigarettes, a lighter - all this paraphernalia. So you're liberated in a certain sense. It's the same with drinking.

When you're using a long brush, you have your arm at full length. Basically, it exaggerates the movement of your body. But I always start far away and end up really close.

I love the healthy exchange of information.

I consider myself lucky to have had wonderful teachers. They expose you to a lot and basically teach you how to paint. I think of my career as a series of lucky incidents.

A work of art is a renewable source of energy.

Being an artist is very independent thinking, although there's always going to be a lot of doubt.

A painting, you know, it's all dirty material. But it's about transformation. Taking that earth, that heavy earthen kind of thing, turning it into air and light.