Phong Bui interviews painter David Humphrey on the occasion of the upcoming exhibition David Humphrey: New Paintings at Fredericks and Freiser, New York, on view from November 8 – December 22, 2012.

Humphrey comments: "For me, the development of a painting proceeds through a kind of productive disorientation. I make each piece in order to learn something." He continues: "I try to make paintings in collaboration with myself. I can split off aspects of myself: one hand does these big abstract gestures while the other models the small details of a representational image. To me, painting is evidence of a series of contacts; the matter of paint is deposited by touching, stroking, and pouring in psychologically charged ways… A painting can be a choreography of speeds and a compression of different times."