Sometimes I'm inspired by a certain part of my life - I'm thinking about a place and I'll mix the colors from memory.

I think artists should define themselves. They should speak about their work and how it relates to society and what's going on in the world.

I never want to abandon my roots. I want to give my past and the history of painting the importance it deserves, including the masters like Rembrandt, who built up the surface of the canvas with transparent layers.

Sometimes I'm inspired by a certain part of my life - I'm thinking about a place and I'll mix the colors from memory.

Sometimes I think I shouldn't explain much about my work because people will just feel what they feel when they see it. They'll love it or hate it or enjoy it on their own, like how I've looked at abstract paintings of other artists and cried or felt happy because I've felt, "Wow, I've lived that, I've understood that."

You try to tap into a memory and you close your eyes and it comes back. So I was doing this in the painting and then that became a practice of mine. Sometimes it was a cathartic situation, a way to meditate.

My style also has a lot to do with theater because often I'm imagining I'm a character who is wandering by a wall and leaves a mark. Then I'm someone else, who 10 days later leaves another mark. Someone was angry and did this, and then someone came and painted over it, and then the sun bleached it out and the weather exposed it again.