I try to create a place of disorientation.

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.

Sometimes you fail

It is easy to show sinners how they sinned but God is not looking for sin pointers, He is looking for sin forgivers. Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

Sometimes for our sanity own sanity we just have to look at the bigger picture.

We need sound bodies so we can develop sound minds.

Peacocks have the bright feathers. Fish have the long tails. Women have the mall.

Not sure if that will benefit me or hurt me, but I know I have the skills and am ready to play in the NBA regardless of my ethnicity.

If Obama's a tyrant, then he's pretty lame for a tyrant. How many tyrants do you know that really suffer because they can't get cloture? Very few.

Illusion never changed into something real.

How does a country deal with the fact that some of its most revered historical figures had certain moral values and political views virtually identical to Nazis?

I was not particularly bright, I wasn't very athletic, I was a little too tall, odd, funny looking, I was just really weird as a kid.