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You should be able to be influenced by art no matter where it comes from.

Basically, I viewed any work of art as an imposition of another person's taste, and saw the individual making this imposition as a kind of dictator.

There is incredible power in the arts to inspire and influence.

My early paintings weren't that good - I was very influenced by Francis Bacon. But there was a kind of intensity there. And however influenced they may have been by other people, even my earliest paintings were recognisably my own.

Art to me is a humanitarian act and I believe that there is a responsibility that art should somehow be able to effect mankind, to make the word a better place.

Art is maybe a subversive activity. There is a certain rebellion when you are an artist at heart, even if only in the art of living.

The painter paints, the musician makes music, the novelist writes novels. But I believe that we all have some influence, not because of the fact that one is an artist, but because we are citizens.

Art is not boosterism, it's not propaganda, and it's not spin, but that's not something that art does, and nor has it historically ever done it.

Masterpieces of art possess immense potential to advance a worldview that could help assuage the societal terrors posed by globalization, the most thoroughgoing socioeconomic upheaval since the Industrial Revolution, which has set off a pandemic of retrogressive nationalism, regional separatism, and religious extremism.

Yes, influences are enriching, and they can be found in every work of art, even the most original.