I want to paint humanity, humanity and again humanity.

..it has always been so much my desire to paint for those who don’t know the artistic side of a painting.

I have always liked looking at people and trying to capture what I see so this was a huge challenge for me. I do try and take my paintings to an optimistic or celebratory level, wherever they start. Taking the positive elevates, and there are many positives to see if we really look.

I was interested in ideas - not merely in visual products. I wanted to put painting once again at the service of the mind.

I see the possibilities of a new kind of painting. With free surfaces, the goal I was always steering towards.

Of course painting is ridiculous. But it’s the only way I've got to get closer to life.

Painting is getting in touch with the truth. It's a matter of summoning up the vision I need.

I don’t know if I've got close enough [in two recent paintings he made] to what I was really trying to achieve. But at least I've tried, I've made the attempt. I've done what I could. I've gone as far as my powers permitted.

To know in order to do, that was my idea. To be in a position to translate the customs, the ideas, the appearance of my time, according to my own estimation; to be not only a painter, but a man as well; in short, to create living art – this is my goal. (Gustave Courbet, 1855) - note

I want my work to be accessible in different ways, more ingrained into other pieces of culture, other than just being on white walls. I want to expand my reach, because when people find my work and they feel a connection and they get it, then I feel like it was for them as well.

Don't lose sight of the essential objectives of painting, which are expression, emotion, delectation; to understand the means, to paint decoratively, to exalt form and color.

Part of the task of the artist is to reach across boundaries, to love and empathize with the other, the stranger.