Listening is a positive act: you have to put yourself out to do it.

I've no doubt that those photographs i took will make people look at everything in a more interesting way - the little tear on one piece of paper, the shadow on another. But good painting has always done that - made you see things. And the most ordinary can be the most extraordinary.

I never work with music. I hate background music, always did. I only like music in the foreground, meaning, deliberately listen to it, actually.

I'm a bit claustrophobic, I don't like crowds, I live by the sea - that's what I see when I come out of my house in Bridlington.

Who's going to ask a painter to see a diploma? They'd say, 'Can I see your paintings?', wouldn't they?

I have always believed that art should be a deep pleasure...ther e is always, everywhere, an enormous amount of suffering. But I believe my duty as an artist is to overcome and alleviate the sterility of despair...New ways of seeing mean new ways of feeling... I do believe that painting can change the world.

I can often tell when drawings are done from photographs, because you can tell what they miss out, what the camera misses out: usually weight and volume - there's a flatness to them.