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.

I have never understood, for instance, why some people see contemporary art as divided between 'painting' and 'conceptual art', as though this represented a genuine division.

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.

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.

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 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.

[I] don't want people to see it [paintings] as a specific intention on my part. If somebody has that interest in these objects, of course they can see that, but from my own point of view, I'd rather stay as neutral as possible.