Usually I bring very attractive women with me to excite interest. I mean, it's a type of, like, strangers-with-candy situation.

The backgrounds by design are a very key part of the conversation, because I want a kind of fight or pressure to exist between the figure and the background.

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.

There's a team of filmmakers who follow me in the streets when I'm finding these models, to give me a sense of legitimacy to a casual stranger. This is New York City. No one's going to follow you back to your studio.

There's nothing shocking inherently about that, given that so much of the way that artists are taught is by copying old master paintings.

When you're at your best, you're analyzing yourself and becoming increasingly isolated from a broader narrative.

My mother's from Texas. Small town outside of Waco called Downsville. And my father's from Nigeria. And so I guess I'm properly African-American.