One learns about painting by looking at and imitating other painters.

Up until 35 I had a slightly skewed world view. I honestly believed everybody in the world wanted to make abstract paintings, and people only became lawyers and doctors and brokers and things because they couldn't make abstract paintings

Any artist can't get away from the way the world works, which is that it wants to know what you did, and you're only interested in what you're doing right now.

The aim of art is to create space.

As far as I was concerned, with the early paintings, I liked them, I thought they were pretty good, but I didn't think it was the end of the world. I also thought of it as a kind of structure, a base to build on. So this proves I can do this and that, and they don't collapse, so then what can I do from here? How can I build on it?

I don't like a lot of the stuff that goes on in the art world, but it's hard to be old and like what goes on around you.

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.