I'm inspired heavily by film influences - David Lynch's Blue Velvet, Federico Fellini, Alfred Hitchcock, Pedro Almodóvar, and what I see in the cinema - so there is a linking, an interweaving between memory, cinema and contemporary life, which the women in my pictures encapsulate.

The work is never finished because women forever will be eternally mysterious to me - and I will always find that point where people are lost in thought, observed but lacking self-consciousness, the most beautiful.

I like the drawings. And as a photography fan myself, I would look at Helmut Newton or Irving Penn and like to see the initial notes or drawings, to see where the ideas grew from. Also my sketches are key to my work because I came to realise early on that by doing drawings, I could formulate a plan of what I was thinking of - I could take control and direct the work.

I suppose I like to set myself projects that are tight, focused, and then challenge myself with how broad I can go within that limited aspect. I think to Helmut Newton and film director, Federico Fellini - the added level of eroticism, the arousing message - and how it was possible for them to keep their signatures over so many years.

I'm always working in this universe - whether picturing hamburger joints, Virgin Marys, domestic scenes - using these "vacant-faced" women as a medium to question universal truths.

When I look at the women, it's from a male gaze of being fascinated, because beyond my mother, I've been around notorious women all of my life, and then, secondly, when I look at women and try and create fictional stories around them.

Having a book is actually like a great master - helping to build a universe and unify work - especially in my pictures where there is such a strong signature, yet with a set of rigorous rules to it.