Small paintings can be fantastic. But you can't often get a narrative out of a small painting. In any case, museums are huge places, and you want to take up some space.

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.

Sometimes I can see the whole painting from the outset in my mind's eye. But more often than not, that idea doesn't last the duration of the painting. Sometimes it comes out easy, just as I had envisaged. But that is reasonably rare.

The surface is all you get of me.

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.

The works are very difficult to get because most are from private collections and museums. When a painting travels a long distance, there is always a risk to the stability of the painting. These paintings are very fragile.