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

The backgrounds by design are a very key part of the conversation, because I want a kind of fight or pressure to exist between the figure and the background.

So sometimes you have to play your hand and sort of push in a direction. And I think that masculinity is the driving point for a lot of the way that people, like, posture in the work.

Mel [Bochner] sets a very high standard. He expects only the best and most thoughtful and rigorous examinations, not only of the history of art but your own practice.

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

I have a really strong suspicion of the romantic nature of portraiture, the idea that you're telling some essential truth about the interior lives of your subject.

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.