While I can hire out the portrait, I don't, because it's just - that's where I shine. You know, that's my blood sport.

He [Michael Jackson] would choose specific moments. They were art history books that I prefer. They were paintings that he prefers. It's this dance back and forth. We were halfway through the dance. He died.

After high school I went to the San Francisco Art Institute, and I began a formalized art education where we went through the history of art but we also went through the art of my contemporaries.

I have been painting white people for much longer in my life than I have done for colored people.

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.

In some way they are all self-portraits, but I think I know what you mean by asking this - I would say, it is too idealistic to paint yourself.

In the end I'm in love with it [Western European easel painting]. And that's where a lot of the influence from the work comes from.