One of the most important elements of Caio-ness I wanted to keep was that left to right reading, where one form draws you... this movement in what is otherwise a fairly still art, that sense of pulling the eye. It involves a sense of time. To me that's esoteric and magical and playful, and if a painting doesn't have that, to me it's just canvas and paint. If it does have that, then it rises above its materials.

My forms are not abstractions of things in the real world. They're also not symbols. I would say that my job is to invent these forms and to put them together in a way that keeps your interest, to give the forms a quirky identity so you can engage with them, so you realize there's an inner intelligence or logic.

One of the most important elements of Caio-ness I wanted to keep was that left to right reading, where one form draws you... this movement in what is otherwise a fairly still art, that sense of pulling the eye. It involves a sense of time. To me that's esoteric and magical and playful, and if a painting doesn't have that, to me it's just canvas and paint. If it does have that, then it rises above its materials.

This morning I got up early and I was glazing the paintings and they just looked so beautiful. I had a private moment of "yeah, I'm behind this." Which is all that matters as an artist, to believe in what you're doing. It sounds like an obvious thing but it takes a lot of work.

I'm not such an artist type that I can't handle the real world. I read the financial pages, because most people don't talk about art.

I was never exposed to art school. I grew up in an artist's studio. I was exposed a lot of studio time between of my father and a great painter I studied with in Barcelona. That was my art school, as Europe was.

So many paintings have hidden meanings or need wall texts, but my work is not in that category.