Unlike the background in many of the paintings that I was inspired by or paintings that I borrowed poses from - the great European paintings of the past - the background in my work does not play a passive role.

That should be something that an artist can respond to as well in terms of a painting.

I think, at the L.A. County Museum of Art, I saw my first example of Kerry James Marshall, who had a very sort of heroic, oversized painting of black men in a barbershop. But it was painted on the same level and with the same urgency that you would see in a grand-scale [Anthony] van Dyck or [Diego] Velazquez. The composition was classically informed; the painting technique was masterful. And it was something that really inspired me because, you know, these were images of young, black men in painting on the museum walls of one of the more sanctified and sacred institutions in Los Angeles.

There's always a tug of war. Like, in the States, in America, there's certainly a higher quotient, I would imagine, of, like, macho, like, masculinity posturing.

There were certain expectations that were assumed of me as a young black American 20th-century - then 20th-century artist.

The expectations of the viewer are what you're asking about. And the expectations of the viewer are manifold. However, they are very fixed, given who I am in the world. People have certain expectations of me as an artist.

I mean, the radical contingency that is - that exists and the fact that I'm going into the streets and finding random strangers any given day - who's in these streets that day?