So much of my work is defined by the difference between the figure in the foreground and the background. Very early in my career, I asked myself, "What is that difference?" I started looking at the way that a figure in the foreground works in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European paintings and saw how much has to do with what the figure owns or possesses. I wanted to break away from that sense in which there's the house, the wife, and the cattle, all depicted in equal measure behind the sitter.

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

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

I think that's kind of indicative of a type of self-confidence that people develop when they recognize their own ability to create.

I think that an obsession with art history gave rise to the work.

There's always a joy in newness as a painter, and in sub-Saharan Africa, I encountered different realities with regard to light and how it bounces across the skin. The way that blues and purples come into play. In India and Sri Lanka, it was no different. It became a moment in which I had an opportunity to learn as a painter how to create the body in full form, and that's a very material and aesthetic thing. This is not conceptual. It's all an abstraction.

I had an amazing instructor, Joseph Gotto , who, as a painter, spoke to me as it - he didn't condescend.