There's nothing shocking inherently about that, given that so much of the way that artists are taught is by copying old master paintings..

The expectations of the viewer are what you're asking about. And the expectations of the viewer are manifold. However, they are very fixed, given who….

My paintings at their best take that vocabulary and attempt to transpose that into a form that gives respect not only to the history of painting but ….

You'll find that street casting in America is a lot different than street casting in different nations..

I think what's really interesting and useful about this question is that ultimately all art is a type of self-portraiture. And so in the act of ident….

Just so [becoming a chef ] that I could support my art habit. You know? I mean, this is - this is something where you've been literally given an oppo….

Can I - do I have to be obsessed with it and proceed from that? Not always. But when I'm on top of my game, I definitely think about the way that the….

There are just so many different types of people that come into my studio, and secondarily, there's the idea of ideation, like, "Who are you and what….

On the contrary, my desire is that the viewer sees the background coming forward in the lower portion of the canvas, fighting for space, demanding pr….

In some way they are all self-portraits, but I think I know what you mean by asking this - I would say, it is too idealistic to paint yourself..

When I went to the Studio Museum in Harlem, there was a type of freedom that existed where I didn't have to think about professors, where I didn't ha….

That's what I think my job in the world has been, is to sort of try to sit silently a bit and watch it all sort of move and see those small, quiet de….

There's always a tug of war. Like, in the States, in America, there's certainly a higher quotient, I would imagine, of, like, macho, like, masculinit….

I think what we should concentrate on is what it feels like to be a working artist in the day to day. One doesn't imagine what comes down the line..

All art is self-portraiture..

We have a lot of sort of received historical ways of viewing portraiture. And I suppose in some way I'm sort of questioning that by toying with the r….

Mel [Bochner] sets a very high standard. He expects only the best and most thoughtful and rigorous examinations, not only of the history of art but y….

I think, at the L.A. County Museum of Art, I saw my first example of Kerry James Marshall, who had a very sort of heroic, oversized painting of black….

Usually I bring very attractive women with me to excite interest. I mean, it's a type of, like, strangers-with-candy situation..

I would imagine that what you try to do is to - is to be as sensitive to the environment that surrounds you as possible. As you see, my work has beco….

You know, the process, I think, is the story. And it goes back, again, to what I said about chance and about radical contingency, the idea that all o….