I remember Francis Bacon would say that he felt he was giving art what he thought it previously lacked. With me, it's what Yeats called the fascination with what's difficult. I'm only trying to do what I can't do.

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

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

Painting is sometimes like those recipes where you do all manner of elaborate things to a duck, and then end up putting it on one side and only using the skin.

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

I've always wanted to create drama in my pictures, which is why I paint people. It's people who have brought drama to pictures from the beginning. The simplest human gestures tell stories.

Everything is autobiographical and everything is a portrait.