I lived in London for a time in the '90s and I love it here. You know, I just go and see shows and have great dinners and walk around.

I think everybody can be beautiful. Anybody can have beauty. It's about how you look at the world, in a way, and how you treat yourself.

You really need faith in yourself to make art and to stand up for what you believe in.

I lived in London for a time in the '90s and I love it here. You know, I just go and see shows and have great dinners and walk around.

Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman was one of those books I read in my mid-twenties that was life-changing. I think I had a very black-and-white view of Marie Antoinette before, but in reading that book, I developed a lot of empathy for her. She was just caught up in history. There was no place for a woman to do anything at that time anyway.

Theres something in music that fascinates me - how it communicates emotion so immediately. Thats something I wanted in my paintings.

I don't think meeting people that I've done pictures of spoils it at all because I like the really human sides of people. To meet them and see that they're complicated and weird or shy or any of those things sort of makes it even better - to know that they can rise above that and make something great.