I think the nice thing about showing work in New York is that other artists come to see it. When you show work in Switzerland or somewhere else, everywhere else seems to be the provinces in a certain way. You wonder what your paintings are doing on the walls and you wonder who's looking at them.

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 think that truth is stranger than fiction, and it's nice to know the people you're making a movie about.

The thing about living in New York is that there are other artists; that is the most difficult, I think they are the hardest critics.

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

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

A lot of what I do is about being in the moment and I think that's hard for people to get. I like it when things suddenly affect the painting. I mix up this red and it affects the whole painting or this little bit of white falls down there, and something changes the whole nature of the thing. The residue on what happens, that's what's in the paintings.