You cannot just be working in a vast, air-conditioned loft space and think you are going to make a decent painting. Francis Bacon had a special studio built, and he felt completely emasculated in there. I have to be somewhere comfortable.

It's not about perfection. What's a perfect painting? What's interesting about a perfect painting?

I would never finish a painting if I didnt have a deadline.

Seeing a play, listening to music - you'll always contextualize it in your own way. Whoever you are, wherever you are; I think that's really important.

If you are someone like Jeff Koons, and you have to work out how to make a big chrome heart or something, then there are lots of people and a big production involved. The money is more natural somehow. For me, I am just on my own in the studio, trying to make things work. One thing is sure: it doesn't make painting any easier.

It's still an escape for me, painting, so it also takes me elsewhere. I don't think I would do it otherwise.

As an artist, you are aware there is this strange money market out there, but you have no sense of how it works.