This exploration of small paintings was a good exercise for me. I had not worked small. Working small didn’t cater to my strengths at the time. I was utilizing a combination of emotional expressiveness and calculated thought. When you add experience to this combination, you eventually end up with instincts, I believe.

My formula has almost always been to begin with instinctual, emotional expression which is followed up by bringing in stylized or machine-precise images that convey an idea or message. Big, emotional planes of color, or bold gestures with a brush come off better big. So I was working big early on.

This series, which was a tribute to Ian Curtis, of Joy Division, was an attempt at doing what I do in a smaller environment or format, and I was happy with the results. It was progress. I learned that it could be done.

Why the tribute? I really admired the way Ian Curtis seemingly, unabashedly put himself out there for us: the poetry, the philosophy, the emotion and the body. It was something I found myself incapable of at the age of eighteen. I thought his lyrics, his sense of performance—what video footage I had seen—and Joy Division’s sound were electric and amazing, and it all helped me channel a lot of my own adolescent angst at the time, which very well may have saved me.