Life is much larger than how we image it, always, but society can be constricting in ways.

I'm reminded of the arm, and the body, and the appendage.

Artists live in unknown spaces and give themselves over to following something unknown.

My support system is simple - people and time. The miracle of other people in your life.

You start with a generic body, but I think the first wall you hit with portraiture is comprised of history and storytelling and the nature of characters - whether they are historical or coming from literature or documentation. Those are the references we have to people, besides your family, and the intimacy of portraiture is in the specifics of individuals. For me, it came out of doing things about animals.

I think that objects have memories. I’m always thinking that I’ll go to the museum and see something and have a big memory about some other lifetime.

Now, it is much more difficult for young people coming to New York. But also when you're young, you have more time to interact with one another, to discover yourself with people of your generation.