Gary Hume

I love to see a wood full of bluebells. Growing up in the Kent countryside, I have special memories of this brief annual spectacle. ”

I got a job as an assistant film editor, which lasted for a few years, but I found writing incredibly difficult, and I thought, 'How am I going to make a film if I can't write?' I didn't really comprehend that someone else would do that bit. ”

I lived on nothing for years - squatted where I lived and where I worked, stole electricity, made things from stuff I found in skips, used paper that had been discarded - you do everything you can do to keep going and not have to get a job. ”

It's not part of my ambition to become fabulously rich. My plan was always to make my pictures, and hopefully people would buy them, and then I'd buy a studio, buy a house, help friends out, do bits and bobs - but I've no idea after that. ”

Small paintings can be fantastic. But you can't often get a narrative out of a small painting. In any case, museums are huge places, and you want to take up some space. ”

My desire to be an artist really came out of being broke and unemployed and incapable of holding a job down. That's what it was driven by for sure. ”

I think Picasso is more feminine than Matisse. ”

My mum always liked poetry, and she had pictures on the wall, so there was this visual stuff around. ”

I do think you get lonelier and lonelier being an artist as you get older. ”

Now, I love painting. I love looking. I love the fact that they don't move. They constantly change with the light. They are sort of patient. ”