I use those expectations as a color on my palette, a certain temperature in the room. You can use those expectations for the great punchline, but also for a great painting, in society.

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.

I never said you had to like it. You have to accept it. No regret. - Claire Harding - Boone Holler

Happy homes are filled with the noise of children

School is a jail, people want there a lot of and when you are out of school what you know from school you remember few and it's useless. So far 12 years at school... (Take it 12 years at jail!)

We are unified both by hating in common and by being hated in common.

Do one thing at a time and do that one thing as if your life depended upon it.

There are three indispensable requirements for a missionary: 1. Patience 2. Patience 3. Patience.

I think everyone has the potential to be creative but they have to find the avenue or avenues that work for them.

You could argue the banks are much better capitalised than they were going into the crisis, and everyone's in a much more vigilant state because they still remember the crisis.

If utopian fiction became the new trend, I wouldn't read it.

Don't believe something just because you didn't read it in the papers. Wait until you haven't seen it on television.