I think that I'm increasingly aware of the fact that in order to work towards any statement that's radically global or universal, you have to start in a place that's radically intimate and particular.

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

Painting is situational. And my particular situation exists within gender, race, class, sexuality, nation.

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

I think that at its best you just have to respect each arena for what they can do well.

It became a question of taste. I have a certain taste in art history. And that - I had a huge library of art history books in my studio. And I would simply have the models go through those books with me, and we began a conversation about, like, what painting means, why we do it, why people care about it why or how it can mean or make sense today.

Just so [becoming a chef ] that I could support my art habit. You know? I mean, this is - this is something where you've been literally given an opportunity to put the world on pause for a second.