I'm not mannerist. I don't think I'm interested in mannerism. If I ever use it in a way, or if manner is like some kind of product of certain sorts of usage of different kinds of materials, then it's about involution or turning in on that.

I want the paintings to take me or the viewer out somewhere else.

I wanted to show painting paintings first, then the plate paintings; now I can show that I've sort of freed myself from stylistic inhibitions.

There's been too much attention on marketing. Can't we just talk about the paintings?

My early paintings weren't that good - I was very influenced by Francis Bacon. But there was a kind of intensity there. And however influenced they may have been by other people, even my earliest paintings were recognisably my own.

I don't think my paintings are self-conscious but you feel the consciousness of them. Without them being self-conscious.

I have a completely romantic idea about making paintings, I guess.