At the same time I really enjoy painting flesh.

I think there's something important in going against the grain, and perhaps finding value in things that aren't necessarily institutionally recognized.

This is something that, as artists, we constantly deal with-throwing away the past, slaying the father, and creating the new. This desire to throw away the old rules.

The backgrounds by design are a very key part of the conversation, because I want a kind of fight or pressure to exist between the figure and the background.

All art is self-portraiture.

Painting is situational. And my particular situation exists within gender, race, class, sexuality, nation.

I believe that artists should be part of the culture. I think that my work clearly bears that out.

The art world has become so insular. The rules have become so autodidactic that, in a sense, they lose track of what people have any interest in thinking about, talking about or even looking at.

We have a lot of sort of received historical ways of viewing portraiture. And I suppose in some way I'm sort of questioning that by toying with the rules of the game.

We're wired to be empathetic and to care about the needs of others, but also to be curious about others. And I think that's just sort of in our DNA. And so portraiture is a very human act.

I guess art is in the eye of the beholder.

In times of solitude, we are still to hear the voice of God.

We now have an opportunity, though, to do something we didn't do in the industrial age, and that is to get a leg up on this, to bring the public in quickly, to have an informed debate.

The important thing is moral choice. Evil has to exist along with good, in order that moral choice may operate. Life is sustained by the grinding opposition of moral entities.

Red lights, green lights, stop and go jive. Headlines, deadlines, jamming your mind.

Therefore one should speak at the same time of national citizenship and wider European citizenship.

It is much easier to be a hero than a gentleman.

Due to our preconceptions regarding education, we fail to inquire into the most obvious and wondrous field of study - ourselves.

Let the good in me connect with the good in others, until all the world is transformed through the compelling power of love.

Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of language.

What is so priceless about being the selves we were created to grow into is that it's impossible to do it wrong.