Never, never do I set to work on a canvas in the state it comes in from the shop. I provoke accidents - a form, a splotch of color. Any accident is good enough. I let the matiere decide. Then I prepare a ground by, for example, wiping my brushes on the canvas. Letting fall some drops of turpentine on it would do just as well. If I want to make a drawing I crumple the sheet of paper or I wet it; the flowing water traces a line and this line may suggest what is to come next.

My characters have undergone the same process of simplification as the colors. Now that they have been simplified, they appear more human and alive than if they had been represented in all their details.

I believe that to do anything in this world one needs a love for risk and adventure, and above all, to be able to do without what middle-class families call "future."

For me, a painting must give off sparks. It must dazzle like the beauty of a woman or a poem.

The simplest things give me ideas.

Painting or poetry is made as one makes love - a total embrace, prudence thrown to the winds, nothing held back.

What I will no longer accept is the mediocre life of a modest little gentleman.