'This was the first painting I started for this exhibition. It informed the rest – the beginning always sets a certain trajectory like a flight path. I get my references from all over the place. The pond was from the German forest, though in the end I made it a different shape. The plants around it are plants on the roadside near where I live in Cape Town. I photographed the rooster in the Seychelles a long time ago. It doesn’t matter where it’s from at all, and I even forget myself, because the elements take on a new identity in the painting.

I am lazy and greedy, and I don’t want to have to try when I look at art. I want my enjoyment to be given to me on a golden, intricate platter, so that I can just lavish love on it and revel in it. I want the illusion of possession. I want the art to lift me lightly over the threshold of my fears, overwhelm me with its beauty and pathos, amuse me with its indulgences. It can be mysterious, but not dull. A dreary mystery is a contradiction in terms.'