Jazz musicians like John Coltrane needed these very clear titles for their abstract music, and your decision to bring voices into your music as a way to tap into content. It's related to the way my text-based work still functions as abstraction for me. If I repeat a sentence down a canvas, the text starts to smudge and disappear. It essentially becomes an abstract piece. The meaning of the text is still there.

Like any artwork, things become richer if you know more about them; but I don't think that's crucial.

I said to myself, "If the government thinks I'm an artist, I must be one."

At a lecture, a guy said to me, "You know, when I look at your work, I don't know what I'm looking at, but when I look at a Willem de Kooning painting, I know what that is." I said, "Well, the paintings I'm doing have a very legible sentence at the top of the canvas." At a lecture, a guy said to me, "You know, when I look at your work, I don't know what I'm looking at, but when I look at a de Kooning painting, I know what that is." I said, "Well, the paintings I'm doing have a very legible sentence at the top of the canvas."

My job is not to produce answers. My job is to produce good questions.

Willem de Kooning paintings are a language to be learned. When they were first shown, they were ridiculed as being just drips and splatters and splashes. You had to learn how to read them.

Paint is a very sensual material. It's lovely to work with and lovely to look at.