Three ideas currently interest me in making paintings. The first is creating paintings that never reveal their full meaning, never end in understanding. I’ve made paintings as clearly as I can and then I’ve taken out the climax, the point, or the one moment that would complete the image; forever delaying sense. Many of the paintings I enjoy most function in this way: Giorgione’s The Tempest, Edward Hopper’s People in the Sun, or Velasquez’s Las Meninas. For me, these paintings get very close to experience.

Another aspect that I want in my work is unpredictability. With few pre-concived ideas beyond a general sense of figure and emotion, I’ll let chance and the process of making dictate what happens. In this regard, I think of the spirit of Willem de Kooning, Francis Bacon, Henry Miller, Anonin Artaud and Henri Michaux.

And finally, and maybe most importantly, I want my work to convey the intensity of sensation and feeling of being alive.