The first exhibition that I used bright colours in painting the room was at a gallery in Paris, and there were seven rooms in the gallery. It was very nice gallery, not very big rooms, around the courtyard, it was a very French space. So I painted each room in different colour. When people came to the exhibition, I saw they came with a smile. Everybody smiles - this is something I never saw in my work before.

I was poorer than anyone I'd ever met. But it was a great time to be a young artist - I remember it as a period of exceptional creative freedom and adventure, when one was regularly presented with works of art unlike anything one had ever seen before.

You can't force yourself to be something you are not.

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.

When I started teaching in the late 60s, in a time of student revolutions and changes, they changed in question of society and authority.

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

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