I think if I was Trinidadian, I would latch more on to the myths and romanticise the place more. I don't think it's my place to do that - they're not really mine. I'm an outsider.

Painting becomes interesting when it becomes timeless.

I also learned that you are affected by your environment, even if you try not to be. Color, light that is, matters because you want to do justice to it and also you get excited by it.

Seeing a play, listening to music - you'll always contextualize it in your own way. Whoever you are, wherever you are; I think that's really important.

I constantly have to negotiate with my doubts.

It's still an escape for me, painting, so it also takes me elsewhere. I don't think I would do it otherwise.

What is bad painting? Picabia made some deliberately bad paintings, but they were by him, so great in a way.

How do you complete a painting, really? There are paintings by so many different artists that are interesting precisely because they haven't really been completed.

I love Trinidad and I love living there, but it's quite harsh.

There could be a hundred paintings in every one painting, depending on when you stop.

It's not about perfection. What's a perfect painting? What's interesting about a perfect painting?

Courageous people know that saying ‘no’ to one idea enables them to say ‘yes’ to another.

Digging through my roots to understand the way my branches grew.

The family is the basis of society. As the family is, so is the society, and it is human beings who make a family-not the quantity of them, but the quality of them.

The most beautiful curve on a woman’s body is her smile.

...I wish that I may never think the smiles of the great and powerful a sufficient inducement to turn aside from the straight path of honesty and the convictions of my own mind.

Giving every child a chance to reach their full potential is the best work anyone can do

Yo, que me figuraba el Paraíso / Bajo la especie de una biblioteca. I have always imagined Paradise as a kind of library.

All fled—all done, so lift me on the pyre— The Feast is over, and the lamps expire.

I am very disciplined in my life and very up front. It is the only way I can do it and do it well. I am up every day at 7, and I feed my kids, no matter how long the day was.

I don't feel comfortable with luxury, and I try to stay fairly normal.