I'm trying to make a primitive painting. I'm trying to summon the archaic. I want to enter into a primitive situation. This is my protest against the sensory deprivation that we experience, which is due to this tendency towards globalization, towards homogenization, towards the generic - a technological standard rather than an aesthetic standard. I'm mining history, trying to regenerate a pictorial situation that is more humanistic. It's not about commodification, it's not about fitting into some sort of corporate structure. It's opposed to that direction.

There is a tendency in my work toward minimalism, in terms of stripping away the unnecessary. I am seeking a tightly ordered gestalt, usually. I've always felt a strong affinity towards Mondrian's work. I understand the importance of those subtle planar and linear modulations he made in the course of building up the incredible visual tension in his work.

I have been very influenced by the Japanese concept of space - the preciousness of space, and how one's environment can be shaped to make the most out of limited resources. That's the kind of thing we need to look at again - how momentous the results can be from very subtle changes.

What excites me and what I find most compelling is clearly not what excites other artists. It comes from my own idiosyncratic background and what I'm drawn to. Maybe this is a result of having lived in Naples during a formative period of time. I'm interested in telling a unique story in a very intense way.

Design is meant to grab you and win you over. It is meant to function in a way so as to make life easier. Obviously painting has to do with something quite beyond that. It's not about communication per se. It doesn't necessarily telegraph anything. It's more about understanding who we are and where we come from.

I'm very tolerant of other art and other artists. But what I truly appreciate, what I truly admire in contemporary art, is work that takes on more than it can sometimes handle - art that gets in over its head.

I don't want to fetishize the past. I want there to be a natural sequence coming out of a synthesis of the ideas and information that I gather together as a result of looking at things that are in the world. I'm trying to bring forward signs or signals based on what I see and my responses to these things. I'm trying to leave a trail that will be useful to other people in the future. It has to do with making something that contains a synthesis of the information, and then consequently to make one's deliberations visible, to allow other people to follow them. That's how I see my role.