This ongoing coexistence which makes life sensational. The eyes have this ability to flip around what they see from one second to another, to see something as an object, and then as a design. That's really liberating, and I try to convey that in my work, that your eyes are free and you are free to use them.

I think there is something very consoling in feeling lost in space but also feeling grounded, and seeing that all of this is part of a bigger clockwork

Books have this function that help me to understand the work I've done, to wrap it up. Once it's done, fortunately, it doesn't mean there's closure. Change in my work happens not in revolutions - it's more evolutionary.

For me, a good portrait shows the fragility and humility of the person, and at the same time a strength, a resting in themselves.

What I'm interested in is happiness with a full awareness of the tragedy of life, the potential tragedy that lurks around every corner and the tragedy that actually is life.

The mobility of the eye is such a fundamental treasure that we have, and that coexists with sensation. On the dance floor, you are totally in reality, while also experiencing this dream imagery of changing colors and wet surfaces of skin. Sometimes it's the shadow outline in the strobe light, and in another moment it's the closeup of an armpit that you're looking into. I'm not photographing all the time, but it's something that I actually see all the time, and not just on the dance floor.

My staged work looks so real that people actually take it for documentary. But, in fact, that is my intention, to disguise the manufacturedness of it. Half of my work, or probably more than that, is staged.