I think the world that I grew up in was like being in this sort of magical artistic garden.

My assistants generally do all the flowers and all of the decorative work. I concentrate on the figure.

At age 20 I went to go find my father in Nigeria. And after much toil, I finally figured out exactly where he was. And there's something about seeing your father for the first time - my mother destroyed all pictures of him.

I'm fully capable of multitasking certain conceptual concerns within the work.

Believing that navel-gazing in and of itself can transform itself into something that means something for society. I mean, we are communicative creatures. We desire to sort of understand each other's experiences and points of view. Storytelling is what painting, literature, filmmaking is all about.

I think what we should concentrate on is what it feels like to be a working artist in the day to day. One doesn't imagine what comes down the line.

I try to create a place of disorientation.