It's three disparate elements: the stop sign, the stage paintings, and the skeleton paintings. Those are three sharp ideas, although none of them are necessarily good ideas. Tons of artists have made whole careers out of those three ideas.

I like when people have opinions - especially about art. You can hate my art. I made my art to be hated. That's why I made the name paintings.

So rather than someone coming to my stu- dio and saying, like, "Thank you for your time. I'll see you later," and me not knowing why they don't like my work, I understand now why they don't like it.

It's three disparate elements: the stop sign, the stage paintings, and the skeleton paintings. Those are three sharp ideas, although none of them are necessarily good ideas. Tons of artists have made whole careers out of those three ideas.

It's the ultimate conceptual artwork. I took a piece of metal and just painted an image of a stop sign on it - a four-by-four-foot stop sign.

Everything comes from a weird place that I don't understand. I make a piece of art just to prove that I exist in my own way. And I can't make something nice. I have to make something that makes me uncomfortable.

I do, but I don't like doing that. I would do it out of hate or anger. I would do it because some- one was pushing my buttons, but really I don't want to break my back in some European city while everyone else is drinking espresso. I only do it because someone refused to pay for the shipping, or something like that. I don't want to let a whole city of people down.