Picasso’s always been such a huge influence that I thought when I started the cartoon paintings that I was getting away from Picasso, and even my cartoons of Picasso were done almost to rid myself of his influence.
And I dont really want it to carry one. Im not interested in the subject matter to try to teach society anything, or to try to better our world in any way.
I think art since Cezanne has become extremely romantic and unrealistic, feeding on art. It is Utopian. It has less and less to do with the world. It looks inward – neo-Zen and all that. Pop Art looks out into the world. It doesn’t look like a painting of something, it looks like the thing itself.
All of it had an impact – as did happenings – because I could see that art was changing from expressionism, which I was doing at the time, or thought I was doing. But it wasn’t the direction I really wanted to go.
I don’t really know what to make of it. There’s something terribly brittle about it. I suppose I would still prefer to sit under a tree with a picnic basket rather than under a gas pump, but signs and comic strips are interesting as subject matter.
There are certain things that are usable, forceful, and vital about commercial art. We’re using those things – but we’re not really advocating stupidity, international teenagerism, and terrorism.
I kind of do the drawing with the painting in mind, but it’s very hard to guess at a size or a color and all the colors around it and what it will really look like.
A number of artists have done things with Mickey Mouse – including Claes Oldenburg and Andy Warhol. He’s such an American symbol, and such an anti-art symbol.
