A realization and a dissection of the canon gave rise to the work. But there's also a sneaking suspicion of the canon.

Going back to that idea that painting sits still and that we give ourselves over to it over time. There's a difference between living with - imagine if this were sitting in your living room for 15 years. You'd probably understand the contours of it.

For me, I wanted to create something that's much more driven by a type of selfishness, a type of decadence.

He's a great - he's a great professor. He retired recently, but.But Peter Halley as well.

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

There's always a joy in newness as a painter, and in sub-Saharan Africa, I encountered different realities with regard to light and how it bounces across the skin. The way that blues and purples come into play. In India and Sri Lanka, it was no different. It became a moment in which I had an opportunity to learn as a painter how to create the body in full form, and that's a very material and aesthetic thing. This is not conceptual. It's all an abstraction.

People who - and I think that's been a huge education for me. I think it's a - it's a privilege to be able to meet such a broad cross-section of New York and increasingly the world, and to get a feel of how people respond to visual culture.