It's a great excuse and luxury, having a job and blaming it for your inability to do your own art. When you don't have to work, you are left with the horror of facing your own lack of imagination and your own emptiness. A devastating possibility when finally time is your own.

I think not knowing what to think of your paintings is a good place to be.

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.

If I hung one of my paintings next to someone else's, I knew mine would kind of pop off the wall.

I do dream about art, and images come to me in dreams. I am definitely hoping to be in touch with my subconscious. I expect a call any minute.

I was always very... impatient about showing my paintings to people.

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.