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.

For me, I wanted to create something that's much more driven by a type of selfishness, a type of decadence.

The expectations of the viewer are what you're asking about. And the expectations of the viewer are manifold. However, they are very fixed, given who I am in the world. People have certain expectations of me as an artist.

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 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.

I studied shades, textures by painting after the Old Masters, the classical European paintings, as part of my educational process.

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