The illusion of life is crucial for the work, otherwise the ideas wouldn't be able to jump across, people wouldn't engage with it.

Ideas rather than methods are central to they way I work, although drawing plays a central generative role in everything I do.

Skywhale is ambiguous. I think she is beautiful, but a lot of people think she is grotesque. You are drawn in and repelled at the same time, and it has to have that dynamic. My work has a certain element of abject mutation, uncertainty and darkness. Even she is dark - I mean she has ten breasts.

Thinking is a social process. I talk to everyone from children to anthropologists and philosophers. I try my ideas out on people and they talk back to you. That's how ideas get formed.

I don't connect accessibility with lowest common denominator.

Melbourne is a fantastic place to work, but it's not the centre of the world.

For me it is a matter of respect for the ideas in the work and the people who look at them. I absolutely hate it when works come back to the studio for repair, and I try to make sure that they never do.