I like making work in my studio day in and day out, but I'm not so interested in the business side

The art I like concentrates on the body. I don't have a feel for Poussin, but for Courbet, Velásquez - artists who get to the flesh. Visceral artists - Bacon, Freud. And de Kooning, of course. He's really my man. He doesn't depict anything, yet it's more than representation, it's about the meaning of existence and pushing the medium of paint.

I do hope I play out the contradictions that I feel, all the anxieties and dilemmas. If they're there in the work, then that's brilliant.

If there's a narrative, I want it in the flesh.

Whether you think you like Rubens or not, his influence runs through the pathways of painting. Like Warhol, he changed the game of art.

There is a thing about beauty. Beauty is always associated with the male fantasy of what the female body is. I don’t think there is anything wrong with beauty. It’s just what women think is beautiful can be different. And there can be a beauty in individualism. If there is a wart or a scar, this can be beautiful, in a sense, when you paint it.

I like making work in my studio day in and day out, but I'm not so interested in the business side