I have to go with what the painting says to me. The painting is always informing me. I'm its servant; it's not mine. I'm doing what it wants.

People constantly describe me as a formalist or even a minimalist, but I'm not really bothered with the rules of painting or the history of painting. My approach is that everything is mine. I take what I can use from wherever, and then I forget where I've taken it from. But there is no point me making anything that looks like anyone else's.

A painting should be tough; it should have muscle, but I have to find some tenderness in it, too. There has to be that dynamic.

Now, I love painting. I love looking. I love the fact that they don't move. They constantly change with the light. They are sort of patient.

I like things that are just about to go. Everything's leaving. Death is never far away from me. When you make something, death can't help but be in it.

I have to take it as a given that I have got a certain ability to do something. I can be an artist, which is take something and transform it into another thing. I can just see something, and I can see my painting.