I build a kind of wall between myself and t he model so that I can paint in peace behind it. Otherwise, she might say something that confuses and distracts me.

Death is pitch-dark, but colors are light. To be a painter, one must work with rays of light.

No longer shall I paint interiors with men reading and women knitting. I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love.

I sense a scream passing through nature. I painted ... the clouds as actual blood. The colour shrieked.

Without fear and illness, I could never have accomplished all I have

Through my art I have tried to explain my life and its meaning. I have also intended to help others to clarify their lives.

I find it difficult to imagine an afterlife, such as Christians, or at any rate many religious people, conceive it, believing that the conversations with relatives and friends interrupted here on earth will be continued in the hereafter.