Acrylic paint on MDF board. 61cm X 91cm. Completed 7th August 2002.

September 11th 2001 was so shocking to witness that I had to use photorealism to paint a response to what I saw as pure evil. Time magazine donated the source image of Osama bin Laden sitting in his tent; when it came to composing the size of the piece it was decided to add the title to the work written at 90 degrees on the right side of the board. This work was called ‘The biggest arsehole on the planet’, I don’t want my position to be misunderstood.

The size of the initial photo from which I started with was quite small and I took little time to do the work – 121 hours. When it came to doing difficult passages such as his beard I did not spend as much time as I could have. This work is meant to be 100% conceptual.

I fully expect to get in a lot of trouble with all sorts of Islamic extremists because of this work but to be a true artist you have to be true to yourself and not worry about what the rest of the world thinks. I am doing this art for myself – no one else. I have another image about Islamic fundamentalism – it is called Failed Mission.

I am not the only one who has taken a similar harsh view of the world – Denis Peterson depicts the worst aspects of our world by showing the homeless, and the poverty of the third world. He calls his work hyperrealism but I have an aversion to the over categorisation of art. For me it’s all photorealism. Even artists like Damien Hirst have taken the medium to talk about unpalatable subjects. His theme is death and he has had assistants churn out images of cadavers in morgues.

I think it is very important as an artist to show the world as it really is – both at its most beautiful and at its ugliest. The worst indictment of the impressionists was there refusal to paint the horrors of the French revolution, instead painting a wonderfully pretty world.