One morning in the Spring of 1984 I was sat staring vacantly out of the window, deep in thought, when some movement in the peripheral area of my vision caught my attention. My London Studio was on the first floor, as I always live either on the ground floor or the first and from my elevated vantage point, I observed over across the street a lady picking up her morning mail through a frosted glass door. As she bobbed up and down and moved back and forth I was fascinated by the way the image kept changing. As she approached the door it became more focused and as she moved back it just went into bobbing blobs of colour. I can still see it now as I write this in 1999.

I had also been reflecting on a deeply disturbing war film my father had taken me to see when I was 13. There is a scene where lovers who have been separated by the Nazis and believing each other probably dead, suddenly recognise each other across a guarded divide. In a moment of compulsive emotion one screams out to the other and they run to each other in full view of everyone only to be shot dead, their outstretched hands ending only inches apart. As a thirteen year old I found this incredibly disturbing.

Also I had for several years admired Monroe, long before they resurrected her. I watched her movies at art cinema houses and had all her albums. Elizabeth Caron looked incredibly like her. Better probably. So there is an element of that in "Kiss". For me the fifties more or less defined glamour. For Elliott there is no love without glamour, romance and excitement. It's just impossible. The obsession would just never kick in.

My mind works in complex ways. I synthesize the essence of a zillion things in a synergistic way and create something even more powerful and original. My system records the exceptional with incredible veracity. It's as if I am unable to perceive the other 98% of everything.