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Painting is the representation of visible forms. The essence of realism is its negation of the ideal.

The creative artist seems to be almost the only kind of man that you could never meet on neutral ground. You can only meet him as an artist. He sees nothing objectively because his own ego is always in the foreground of every picture.

Pollock said several times that he couldn't separate himself from his art. Not knowing much about modern art when I began to read about him, I was much more his persona - his struggles as a human being - that was interesting to me.

My paintings are certainly nonobjective. They're just horizontal lines.

I paint what cannot be photographed, that which comes from the imagination or from dreams, or from an unconscious drive.

I like to do really realistic paintings, which requires so much focus; like, if I have to go to the bathroom or change a song, I can't; I'm so in it.

The narrative oftentimes is that everything that comes out of the hood is 'real,' and so I thought, 'I'll base it on the absurd, the not real. I'll twist the idea of real on its head and see if I can get away with it. I'll make paintings that come not from a place but through an abstract gaze.'

I do not think that any realism is beautiful.

I was a really lousy artist as a kid. Too abstract expressionist; or I'd draw a big ram's head, really messy. I'd never win painting contests. I remember losing to a guy who did a perfect Spiderman.