In the period of '60s to the '90s, British art schools were small, and the number of student was small. The personal contact was great.

You can see in my paintings, I've taken away the context, I've taken away the shadows, I've taken away expression, I've taken away the personal, and yet so much remains!

The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition is very difficult to hang because it is so large and the quality is very varied. There are 1,200 works, an almost impossible number, some are interesting and some are not.

As an artist you are free to use any image, any style, any idea from any culture and any period of history.

I try to make images that have the immediate presence we take for granted in objects - a chair, a shoe, a book, a Judd - and compose them like sentences.

When I told people that I was going to paint the big room magenta, many people thought that I was crazy.

In Britain the power of authority was weakened. There was much more individual freedom and there was great academic freedom.