In a successful painting everything is integral - all the parts belong to the whole. If you remove an aspect or element you are removing its wholeness.

I can never accomplish what I want - only what I would have wanted had I thought of it beforehand.

In a successful painting everything is integral - all the parts belong to the whole. If you remove an aspect or element you are removing its wholeness.

I don't go into the studio with the idea of 'saying' something. What I do is face the blank canvas and put a few arbitrary marks on it that start me on some sort of dialogue.

When I am halfway there with a painting, it can occasionally be thrilling... But it happens very rarely; usually it's agony... I go to great pains to mask the agony. But the struggle is there. It's the invisible enemy.

I came to mistrust my desire to explode the picture and supercharge it in some way… what is more important is a feeling of strength in reserve – tension beneath calm.

My freedom consists in my moving about within the narrow frame that I have assigned myself for each one of my undertakings.