I would never finish a painting if I didnt have a deadline.

I constantly have to negotiate with my doubts.

Painting doesn't have a function, not in the way that music or film does... I mean, you can dance to music. Music can be used for a soundtrack, so it has a function in that sense, beyond itself. But painting doesn't... But I do believe that painting has a purpose.

Painting becomes interesting when it becomes timeless.

What is bad painting? Picabia made some deliberately bad paintings, but they were by him, so great in a way.

Seeing a play, listening to music - you'll always contextualize it in your own way. Whoever you are, wherever you are I think that's really important.

It's not about perfection. What's a perfect painting? What's interesting about a perfect painting?

I don't feel any real animosity towards critics when they write negative things. I think some are more perceptive than others. Some are very knowledgeable about painting. But it isn't something I have any influence over, so there isn't any point in worrying about it.

I'm not one of those artists having people there lying around on their paintings, you know, like Hockney or whoever.

I also learned that you are affected by your environment, even if you try not to be. Color, light that is, matters because you want to do justice to it and also you get excited by it.

How do you complete a painting, really? There are paintings by so many different artists that are interesting precisely because they haven't really been completed.

There could be a hundred paintings in every one painting, depending on when you stop.

I think if I was Trinidadian, I would latch more on to the myths and romanticise the place more. I don't think it's my place to do that - they're not really mine. I'm an outsider.

It's still an escape for me, painting, so it also takes me elsewhere. I don't think I would do it otherwise.