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

It is very important to develop the thing that you are naturally good at, that you are truly interested in.

When I was teaching I often said to students that you are trying to be too creative, don't be too creative, because there is so much already in what you are making, you don't need to do very much. You just need to do a little bit, and that is a lot.

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.

The internet has extended the possibility of making art to more people, and particularly of enabling it to be seen by others. I am sure the internet is having a profound impact on art, particularly those who have grown up with it, but making good art will remain as difficult (and as easy) as it ever was. Having a lasting impact may become more not less difficult.

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

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