I'm not one of those artists having people there lying around on their paintings, you know, like Hockney or whoever.

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

Painting becomes interesting when it becomes timeless.

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.

I love Trinidad and I love living there, but it's quite harsh.

I think if I was Trinidadian, I would latch more on to the myths and romanticise the place more. I don't think it's my place to do that - they're not really mine. I'm an outsider.

I also learned that you are affected by your environment, even if you try not to be. Color, light that is, matters because you want to do justice to it and also you get excited by it.