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

For example, in one of my last exhibitions I had a 50-foot massive painting with I think perhaps a hundred thousand hand-painted small flowers. This was the Christ painting [The Dead Christ in the Tomb, 2008] in my Down exhibition [2008]. Now, I simply can't spend eight hours a day painting small, identical flowers. And so I've got a team that allows me to have these grand, sweeping statements.

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.

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

One of my most strong memories was studying with Mel Bochner, one of the, I think, high water marks of American conceptual art.

I think there's something important in going against the grain, and perhaps finding value in things that aren't necessarily institutionally recognized.

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