That's what I think my job in the world has been, is to sort of try to sit silently a bit and watch it all sort of move and see those small, quiet details, whether it be a small village outside of Colombo [country?] or the favelas of Brazil, where, again, resistance culture is something that you hear resonating in the streets of South Central Los Angeles as well.

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

It's a culture. It's - I mean, people obsess over this. And people create subcultures that identify - and there are people in the streets who will recognize certain patterns and signifiers.

There's quite obviously the desire to open the rule sets that allow for inclusion or disclusion. I think that my hope would be that my work set up certain type of precedent, that allowed for great institutions, museums and viewers to see the possibilities of painting culture to be a bit more inclusive.

This is something that, as artists, we constantly deal with-throwing away the past, slaying the father, and creating the new. This desire to throw away the old rules.

I was 12 in 1989 during perestroika, when my mother found a program that sent me to Russia to study art in the forests outside of Leningrad.

I create something that means something to me, to the world, and try to do my best. I can't fix everything.