I Wanted Things That I Couldn't At

Every So Often Every Artist Feels, 'i'll Never Paint Again. The Muse Has Gone Out The Window.' In 1985, I Hardly Painted At All For Three Months, And It Was Agonizing. I Looked At Reproductions. I Stared At Matisse. I Stared At The Old Masters. I Stared At The Quattrocento. And I Thought To Myself - Don't Push It! If You Try Too Hard To Get At Something, You Almost Push It Away.

I Have Always Been Concerned With Painting That Simultaneously Insists On A Flat Surface And Then Denies It.

You Have To Know How To Use The Accident, How To Recognise It, How To Control It, And Ways To Eliminate It So That The Whole Surface Looks Felt And Born All At Once.

Art Has A Will Of Its Own. It Has Nothing To Do With The Taste Of The Moment Or What's Expected Of You. That's A Formula For Dead Art, Or Fashionable Art.

A Really Good Picture Looks As If It's Happened At Once. It's An Immediate Image.