What's interesting about my project recently is that I'm going out into broader global spaces but then isolating at the same time - sort of pushing out but then pulling in.

So sometimes you have to play your hand and sort of push in a direction. And I think that masculinity is the driving point for a lot of the way that people, like, posture in the work.

What we have now is a communication ability. We have the ability to see working ideas that are going on in the great cities throughout the world and whether you live in Shanghai or you live in Sao Paulo, you have the ability of seeing and knowing the ideas of some of the greatest minds of our generation.

I have a lot of problems with Western European easel painting.

My paintings at their best take that vocabulary and attempt to transpose that into a form that gives respect not only to the history of painting but also to those people who look and sound like me.

When the fat lady comes out to sing, we don't know how she feels that day. We don't know if she's suffering from a cold or is mourning a death or falling in love. We don't know. But so all of that chance is the performance.

The backgrounds by design are a very key part of the conversation, because I want a kind of fight or pressure to exist between the figure and the background.