I think I care about beauty, but I don't go for it. I hope it sometimes might be in there. I think, maybe, more in terms of a beautiful moment than trying to figure out what beauty is or what people respond to.
The paintings are like prayers, relating to wishing for something beyond everyday life.
I think artists almost always end up turning to what's around them, what's in their environment or outside their window.
I think there has to be an interesting transformative process between your perception of reality and making the paintings. If you are just trying to render what you see you are not entering into a transformative process. And that's what makes a good painting: the process of transforming and the willingness to leave reality behind.
Most of my painting is done sitting in a chair with a book. I'd say it's 80 per cent sitting and reading, 10 per cent eating and ten per cent painting.
Some of the pictures are truly mysterious to me.. which is why I so often say publicly that I don't know or don't care what they're really about. And yet I can also say that the paintings are prayers.. that they have to do with whatever it is that makes you want more than what daily life affords.
Sometimes the painting starts to relate very directly to either sights seen or experiences felt, other times it just goes off on a tangent that you really can’t articulate.
I can say that paintings are prayers, they have to do with anything that makes you wish for more that what everyday life provides.
I started to try to be a colorist, although secretly thinking of myself as somewhat of a black and whiteist.
You build up a head of steam. If you're four days out of the studio, on the fifth day you really crash in there. You will kill anybody who disturbs you on that fifth day, when you desperately need it.
The problem with Matisse is that I can't ever figure out when he's done a good painting or a bad painting because I don't know how to analyse him. I just know that I like the way he put it on and I like his airs and forms.
