I have had a lifelong fascination with horror movies, scary movies, how they work.

I realised that in my last two bodies of work - the mural and the Chanel pieces - that I didn't use any make-up because I was changing the faces digitally, and I realised I missed make-up in a major way.

I wanted pretty pictures of older women - women who are trying too hard but succeeding - pulling off an extreme look. What I didn't know would creep into the portraits was a vulnerability behind the strong facade that most of them wear.

My dad was such a bigot. He was a horrible, self-centred person. He was really racist and he'd talk about the Jews and blacks and Catholics even.

It is not like adding wrinkles to look older; it is using the wrinkles I already have to say something else. What is disturbing is not seeing more lines on my face but seeing that the range of possibilities of what I can do is much more limited.

As I was looking through a book about German Expressionist films and their stars, it all came together because of the extreme way actors made their faces up in those early day of film in order to pop out in the black-and-white. I just wanted to use makeup in the same way, partly perhaps because as women get older, they're told to wear less makeup.

The more horrific works came out of a feeling that everyone accepted my stuff too easily. I was deliberately trying to be antagonistic towards collectors and critics.

Quite often, I will do something and think, 'Oh, no, she looks a little too much like me.' I have tried to learn not to be afraid of that when that happens. I am not trying to obliterate myself and completely hide within the images like I used to.

I always need to get away from whatever it is I've just finished, to feel a distance from it.

I want there to be hints of narrative everywhere in the image so that people can make up their own stories about them. But I don't want to have my own narrative and force it on to them.