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In 2007, I moved into a new home and studio space. It was smaller than the basement that I was in for the two years preceding the change, but it was also brighter—because it was on the fifth floor of a building and had more natural light, and because it was the first space I shared with my partner.

Besides the continued focus on the commission work that I love, my approach to painting developed in several ways in 2007. I invented an entirely new way of working for my You Bags, and I also made a commitment to a change in style that I began in 2006. I started including background images in my portraits more regularly, and my conceptual series Swollen was the first public showing of this evolution in my work.