Julie L. Belcove interviews painter Cecily Brown whose work will be on view at Maccarone Gallery, New York through June 20, 2015.

Brown comments: "With the small ones … I’d deliberately not get back from them and look, then at the end of the day be like, Whoa! It had become this very dense world, teeming with activity — a little like putting your face close to the grass and realizing all the activity. You see how much is going on in one square inch. I think, in these, I realized more than ever how important it is for me to have a definite figural thought in mind as I work. For me, when it gets purely abstract, it gets decorative. I need to have the sort of weight behind the mark that I’m trying to say something specific."