To have been torn from the study would have been as death; my time was entirely occupied with art.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I love art and I think I was destined to end up in some aspect of the arts.
The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it's dead for you.
It dawned on me that art was the way I could survive.
When I left the Royal College, I decided I would only make paintings that I would want to look at myself, that felt close to my life.
My exposure to visual art all my life was intensive.
I slowly dismantled the act of painting, to consider the possibility that no-thing ever really transcends its immediate environment.
If I didn't choose art, I would have become an astronomer.
I was an art student at the time, like thousands of others.
There were various turning points, but the main one at the beginning was that I was going off to do another degree in the history of art. I would have ended up as some art historian at Sotheby's or something.
No, my degree was history, not the practice of art! I can't draw to save my life you know.