My mother is my last point of security in relation to my past, and if that breaks, I will not ever have that type of pure love or pure attachment.

I think every one of us dreams, and we know what the quality of a dream is. In many ways, the reason dreams are so - mine are a little bit nightmarish, is that it's when you're really naked and can really face the things you don't face in reality, your darkest anxieties.

We're either awake or we're sleeping. During the time that we're awake, we work very hard at denying things, mainly because we have to function as people. We have to control and repress everything that we're fearful of, because it doesn't make sense to go crazy on the streets, but in reality we hide and we hide, repress and repress, our fears of the world of violence, of separation, of death, and sometimes hopes, and some things that are very joyful, reunions or all of those good things. It's only in dreams that we're really truthful with whatever hurts most; they're really very real.

I'm really interested in social justice, and if an artist has a certain power of being heard and voicing something important, it's right to do it. It could still be done in such a way that it's not aggressive or overly didactic. I'm trying to find that form.

My work has never been autobiographical. Although the subjects are driven on a personal perspective it's sort of elevated above me. I try to express something that is more a collective expression of crisis.

Art is no crime. It's every artist's responsibility to make art that is meaningful

I find that through the study of women, you get to the heart - the truth - of the culture.