Jen Galatioto interviews painter Amy Lincoln on the occasion of the exhibition Amy Lincoln: Plants, Portraits, and a Distant View at Projekt 722, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on view through February 24, 2013.

Lincoln comments: "I like to have a bit of a sense of humor with some of the imagery in my paintings. The whole idea of zebras in the jungle is sort of a joke, even a play on the idea of naive painting, where someone imagines this exotic land but doesn’t really have the details right. Zebras don’t really live in the jungle, of course. As to the austerity, or order, to some degree that comes from an idea I have that there is so much useless crap we buy and then have to store, that if I am going to create a new object, it better be extremely carefully, beautifully, thoughtfully made. I would rather take a lot of time and make fewer objects, but make them really special and unusual. This is also the result of trying to make good compositions. I enjoy making complex compositions, but this requires putting trees in, then taking them out, repainting a fish so that it’s one inch further to the left."