Amanda Church interviews painter Gary Petersen about his work which is on view in the exhibition There Are No Giants Upstairs at Theodore:Art, Brooklyn through July 29, 2012.

Petersen remarks: "my work does not 'abstract' from nature, it is just that all these things are in you and if you are in touch with these memories they do come out in the work… [My compositions] are intuitive. I start with a line, with certain ideas or feelings in my head, and work from there. Things start to happen and I think that process is reflected in the work. Humor and contradiction are all a part of it."