I had my exhibition of paintings first in Shanghai, and then recently in Wuhan. Wuhan particularly interested me, because I am 1/8 Chinese.

It's important for me to give each thing the possibility to speak and also to allow artworks speak to each other.

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

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

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.

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.

In a sense [Joseph] Albers was an authoritarian teacher. He had rules about most things and very definite ideas.