I would never put a sculpture in front of a painting, so that it is difficult to see the painting. I always place each thing so you can see it isolated. You can focus on every individual work.

For many years I hoped to have an exhibition in China, because of my family connection.

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

There was something really wonderful about being able to feel confident about doing my first exhibition in China, that people would have no trouble recognising the images and understanding my work. I also have a lot of freedom in the way I use colour, and I think that kind of freedom in colour is also understandable in every culture.

I don't like the idea of nationalism, but on the other hand, I do see that there is a difference between British art, German art and Chinese art. This is because of the history, because each country has different history and each country reads and teaches that history differently.

Often people do not properly value things that they are good at naturally because they find them too easy. That is very problematic.

When I was in Wuhan, I went to the art school, which was one of the most important art schools in China, an enormous art school. One of the things that I saw is that the schools are very big and there are so many students. It is very difficult to me to teach creative activity to great numbers of people, because I think you need personal contact with students, you need to speak individually, you need individual contact between teachers and students, you need continuity. To me this is a problem in mass education in every society now.