Having worked in sculpture and ceramics, why do you choose painting to convey your ideas?

I started in ceramics — actually studied ceramics. But even in doing ceramics or sculpture I always had the intention of covering it with paint. Also with a painting, it doesn’t take up as much space. It’s just a window on a wall…whereas a sculpture is an obstacle in space.

In the past you’ve been pegged a critic of capitalism, consumerism, and even the art market. Yet your recent work contains less political and more transcendental, peaceful themes.

Yes. Well I think what happened is my career came about right at the time of September 11, at the height of the Bush era and the war, so that was fueling a lot of my work. Then all of the sudden, during the last two years, we had this new presidency. And even though we’re still at war, there’s this certain hope or optimism. And there’s a search — there’s this transitional search…I think that’s what the Premonitions show was about — this transitional search — both intuitively for me but on a global level as well.