I happen to be a twin. I grew up half of my life with someone who looks and sounds like me. And I believe it's possible to hold twin desires in your head, such as the desire to create painting and destroy painting at once. The desire to look at a black American culture as underserved, in need of representation, a desire to mine that said culture and to lay its parts bare and look at it almost clinically.

In the end I'm in love with it [Western European easel painting]. And that's where a lot of the influence from the work comes from.

What it is is a type of editorialization, you know? This is self-portraiture. This is what you think about the world we live in.

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.

I have been painting white people for much longer in my life than I have done for colored people.

He's a great - he's a great professor. He retired recently, but.But Peter Halley as well.

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.