I came to painting through sculpture, to images through objects. I think that images sit in the middle, somewhere between objects and words.

I am personally happy for artists to make as much money as they can while they can to carry them through the times when they can't.

In the studio, it took me a long time to work out how to make paintings that had the intensity that I was able to create by painting whole rooms. There is a very limited number of colours but there are many variations. I decided to use the purest palette that I could.

I look at the character of the exhibition and I treat it as I would a painting or an installation. When I did the Summer Exhibition at Royal Academy, I did it exactly as I would when making a new work.

If I did not love the things that I do, how could I spend my life doing this? You have to invest what you spend your life doing with pleasure.

I do think I paid a price as an artist, and I am trying to make up for it now - I work six days a week in the studio, and I've never been happier.

There is no doubt when one comes from the West to China one understands pop art as having originally developed as part of Western tradition. There is a historical development, in which things find resonance in different places.