When I look at a body it gives me choice of what to put in a painting, what will suit me and what won't. There is a distinction between fact and truth. Truth has an element of revelation about it. If something is true, it does more than strike one as merely being so.

The paintings that really excite me have an erotic element or side to them irrespective of subject matter

The aura given out by a person or object is as much a part of them as their flesh.

I would wish my portraits to be of the people, not like them. Not having a look of the sitter, being them.

The character of the artist doesn't enter into the nature of the art

The painter's obsession with his subject is all that he needs to drive him to work.

The process of creation becomes necessary to the painter perhaps more than is the picture. The process in fact is habit-forming