There are absences, but there are also presences. It's about how painting can evolve its own abstractions. I didn't know the painting was going to be about that, but it has to have that journey; I have to learn something, I have to end up somewhere I didn't expect to be, otherwise, I don't think it's painting.

The moment is never perfect. It's like that right now - in my head I'm being super lucid, but you never are. You're always fumbling.

The paintings don't exist outside themselves. There's no lead photograph off the internet or anything like that. It all comes from my mind and it's a bit like a little movie each time - how do I get the props, the setting, the time of day, the light, the action.

There are certain times when a painting accelerates beyond you, and you have to try and understand and catch up with it.

There are absences, but there are also presences. It's about how painting can evolve its own abstractions. I didn't know the painting was going to be about that, but it has to have that journey; I have to learn something, I have to end up somewhere I didn't expect to be, otherwise, I don't think it's painting.

I felt like I had reached the end of a period of life, where the work was jumping about and pushing something new every time. I wanted to dial it back and create a language that was stable and deep.

Using painting as a metaphor for consciousness is what I'm interested in.