There was a point in time where the thought of people even talking about me made me anxious. Physically.

When I left the Royal College, I decided I would only make paintings that I would want to look at myself, that felt close to my life.

In the end, it doesn't really matter what you paint. It's all just a routine to connect yourself finally with other people.

I'm aware that success can overwhelm you. The perception of you can be elevated to such a status that it's not you any more.

When I was painting in art school - and I think many painters in the 1980s worked similarly - a finished painting would often be constructed from lots of other paintings underneath. Some of these individual layers of painting were better than others, but that was something that you would often only realise retrospectively.

There was a point in time where the thought of people even talking about me made me anxious. Physically.

Sometimes, as I feel a door or an exit point in my work is closing, I'll try to create an opening so as not to stifle the creative process, which I see as a process that's never-ending.