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.

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

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.

The viewer brings all additional information to the image.

You can take things from the past, from the culture, from the immediate past and things that have not yet entered the culture, so they have no history yet. You can create your own context.

There is a complete difference between art and the art market. Prices are high now for the simple reason that there are people are willing to pay them. The market dominates the art world today because at the moment collectors call the shots. Like everything else that won't last forever.

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.