Status and class and social anxiety and perhaps social code are all released when you look at paintings of powerful individuals from the past.

My studio practice is a - I suppose a bit more like [Thomas] Gainsborough or [Peter Paul] Rubens in the sense that any artist who wants to create a grand narrative on a grand scale has to sort of parse out some of the smaller aspects of painting or the more mundane aspects of painting to others.

I love being a portraitist.

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

Your best as an artist is to create something that resonates for you.

Whereas I remember being in Dakar, in Senegal, where I have my third studio, and street casting, and I remember looking at the faces of the young men that we were speaking to through translators and so on, showing them the books. Complete - completely different response.

As a twin, I operate with twin desires.