We have a lot of sort of received historical ways of viewing portraiture. And I suppose in some way I'm sort of questioning that by toying with the rules of the game.

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

When the fat lady comes out to sing, we don't know how she feels that day. We don't know if she's suffering from a cold or is mourning a death or falling in love. We don't know. But so all of that chance is the performance.

Is it the responsibility of the colored artist or the ethnic artist to create works that are designed to exist in opposition to a certain political structure?

Whereas I remember being in Dakar, in Senegal, where I have my third studio, and street casting, and I remember looking at the faces of the young men that we were speaking to through translators and so on, showing them the books. Complete - completely different response.

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 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.