To paint is a possessing rather than a picturing.

Usually I am on a work for a long stretch, until a moment arrives when the air of the arbitrary vanishes, and the paint falls into positions that feel destined.

Look at any inspired painting. It's like a gong sounding; it puts you in a state of reverberation.

I am a night painter, so when I come into the studio the next morning the delirium is over.

Painting and sculpture are very archaic forms. It's the only thing left in our industrial society where an individual alone can make something with not just his own hands, but brains, imagination, heart maybe.

My parents are artists and they decided they would prefer to paint in the Mediterranean rather than in Scotland.