I begin [a painting] from an impulse, an intense and irrational desire that takes you over, prompting you to start moving. And from experience, with some knowledge of what moves oneself, I think it's not altogether arbitrary what one begins with.... certainly implicit partially is the feeling, not that 'I am going to paint something I know' by 'through the act of painting I'm going to find out exactly how I feel'.

'interview with David Sylvester', (1960)