Sean Scully

I was doing an interview with a curator, and he asked me to sum up art in one word. Before he even finished asking the question, I said, 'Impurity.' Because that's it.

That's the job of art: to undo the logic of the world.

My art is based on impurity. You have to mix things from different refined cultures to get something raw, to make it go again.

I was the only one to go to university, and the last thing my dad wanted was for me to be an artist. But later on, when I bought him a house in the south of Spain, he thought it was all right then.

When I was a teenager, I was very political.

I started at school. When I painted, all the girls would come and sit around me. I realised that this was a really good way to get girlfriends.