I actually studied cooking and, like, was thinking about becoming a chef.

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

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.

I enjoy Chicago as one of the great American cities. When I come here and take a taxi from the airport, I meet a young man from Somalia. I meet a young man from Eritrea who engages with this nation with a sense of hope and a sense of desire. But we also we know that there are other elements of this nation that are toxic.

There is no purity with regards to the marketplace and art, I believe.

I think it was a matter of, like, I'm not going to have my kids in these wild streets. Both my twin brother and I were in art school together.

That should be something that an artist can respond to as well in terms of a painting.