Thomson's small oil sketches of the last years palpitate and throb. They are as direct in attack as a punch in the nose.

Painting is still to a great extent dominated by a central image; corners in most cases are like uninvited guests at a party, uneasy and unattended.

Made up of corallitic accretions and painful increments, lit on rare occasions by bolts of revelation, and then stuffed behind the wainscotting to grope in the mouse-turd dust, art is the equivalent of athlete's foot, at best an exquisite itch, at worst an excuse to stop walking. On the emotional side, it is either masturbation with a hockey glove or a night beneath the sliding moon that shames Eros.

Any artist who doesn't think he's the best should quit.

It's such an honour being banned in Italy, the mother of sensuality. It's like being asked to straighten your tie in a bordello... It's ironic that the pictures were removed on the complaint of a cardinal. I regard censorship as a cardinal sin.

Thomson's small oil sketches of the last years palpitate and throb. They are as direct in attack as a punch in the nose.

I am interested in doing something that cannot be explained.