I am interested in the process of painting, and I am interested in why
human beings want to kill one another for political ends. These two
apparently diverse preoccupations I attempt to reconcile by smearing
pigment around on canvas in an effort to achieve a result whose success
can be measured by how well it disguises the sheer preposterousness
of the attempt.

—

"We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and
then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so
as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on
this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or
later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield."
George Orwell

"If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil
deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us
and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the
heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his
own heart?"
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn