I do have a very, very big problem with someone who saw me coming and exploited me as a mascot.

I had been painting Kate Moss for a long time, both before the time of her crisis and during it. I felt very strongly for her - she's a hard-working mum and it seemed as if suddenly the world turned against her. Holy water cannot help you now is painted in very warm pretty colours.

I think there is a total equality for me between painting a literary figure or Kate Moss or my Mum or a dog or a bird. To me, they are all absolutely equal.

I like strong/vulnerable interesting women, and then sometimes I like painting beautiful men, like Kurt Cobain, or Mr Darcy.

Perhaps the people I choose to paint are often objects of derision - celebrity is a bit of a put-down term, isn't it? But to me they are my world.

I like to watch old films. Meet Me in St Louis, Cul-de-Sac and Buffalo 66 are some of my favourites.

I will look through 200 photographs of Kate Moss and there will be just one that I connect with for some reason, maybe because of the composition or something in the eye... Something touches me and I know I have to paint it, in the way a child knows it wants something.