I made work specifically for them not to like. If you made paintings of flowers and someone says they hate it, it's like, "What do you mean? It's a flower!" But if you make a painting of your name and somebody says they hate it, it's like, "Well, why would you like a painting of my name anyway?"

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.

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.

And the cool kids always had a stop sign in their bedroom. Which means: "I don't care if people die. I want my stop sign." At least the assumption was that they took it down from somewhere and now there are old ladies hitting each other head-on somewhere.

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.

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.

I didn't want it to have any technical virtuosity; I wanted it to just be really clear how it was made. For my work in general, it's always really clear how it is made.