I wanted to make new works of very contemporary objects, which I thought was interesting because many of them are manufactured in China, but these objects are universal, they go across all languages, all cultures.

If things are too similar, the dialogue is not very interesting. If you put in contrast, big and small, abstract and representational, you set up the possibility of a discourse.

I've taken away everything I could think of, and yet what remains is enough. These days many more people come to my work, and once they see my work they will always recognize it.

In a sense [Joseph] Albers was an authoritarian teacher. He had rules about most things and very definite ideas.

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 identifying personal association with objects, which are not personal, is an important modern experience - our real association, the strands of our feelings about the objects that surround us. It's also because they are so familiar, we don't think of them as important in the world, but actually they are the world. We are living in a very material world.

When I go to China I see many artists whose work reflects on aspects of contemporary popular culture but obviously the history of Western art is not part of their own tradition.