When I'm painting the picture, I'm really painting a picture. I may have a flat-footed technique, or something like that, but still, to me, the thrill, or the meat of the thing, is the actual painting. I don't get any thrill out of laying it out.

I'm more of a house painter.That's the way I work.

I had to find a way to paint abstractly, which is what I wanted to do. I couldn't forget Wassily Kandinsky and Kazimir Malevich and Piet Mondrian, I mean that was the basis.

There's a lot of difference between being well known and being notorious and the black paintings didn't make me well known - they made me notorious.

The aim of art is to create space.

I don't like to say I have given my life to art. I prefer to say art has given me my life.

One learns about painting by looking at and imitating other painters. I can't stress enough how important it is, if you are interested at all in painting, to look and to look a great deal at painting. There is no other way to find out about painting.