Most people live in the city and go to the country at the weekend, and that's posh and aristocratic, but actually to live in the country and come to London when you can't take it any more is different.
I was taught to confront things you can't avoid. Death is one of those things. To live in a society where you're trying not to look at it is stupid because looking at death throws us back into life with more vigour and energy. The fact that flowers don't last for ever makes them beautiful.
Museums are for dead artists. I'd never show my work in the Tate. You'd never get me in that place.
People always say that my work is sensational or shocking but there are truly shocking things you could do, and my sculptures don't go anywhere near that.
I've been asked to do a retrospective since I was about 28 and I always thought that was a bit odd. It's great to look forward as an artist because in the future the possibilities are infinite; you look back and it's all fixed so it's a scary thing.
I gave up painting by 16. I secretly thought I would have been Rembrandt by then.
