We're all products of what we want to project to the world. Even people who don't spend any time, or think they don't, on preparing themselves for the world out there - I think that ultimately they have for their whole lives groomed themselves to be a certain way, to present a face to the world.

I was supporting myself, but nothing like the guy painters, as I refer to them. I always resented that actually.. we were all getting the same amount of press, but they were going gangbusters with sales.

Early in my career, a critic said that I needed to "explain" the irony in my work, suggesting that I needed to add text next to the images to help people understand what I was trying to say. At first I was dismayed that I wasn't making work with a clear enough message. That's when I realized that that was the exact opposite of what I wanted to do - that I wasn't responsible for a misinterpretation of my work, that there should be some ambiguity to it. They either got it, or they didn't.

I'm good at using my face as a canvas… I'll see a photograph of a character and try to copy them on to my face. I think I'm really observant, and thinking how a person is put together, seeing them on the street and noticing subtle things about them that make them who they are.

The still must tease with the promise of a story the viewer of it itches to be told.

I’m trying to make other people recognize something of themselves rather than me.

If I knew what the picture was going to be like I wouldn’t make it. It was almost like it was made already – the challenge is more about trying to make what you can’t think of.