Arthur Peña interviews painter Iva Gueorguieva whose work is on view at Ameringer | McEnery | Yohe, New York, through March 8, 2014.

Gueorguieva comments: "There is a muscle memory that becomes alive in the act of painting and I feel it… In painting there is a gradual buildup of layers. It gives me tremendous pleasure to watch this buildup, to observe how a blue wash spills and pools around the edges of a piece of collage. The image gradually emerges from the process of layering, but it is never stable. I am not sure if I am putting it there, rendering it, forming it, drawing it out, or just noticing its contours and accepting it… I try to focus all of my energy on that moment where the surface can support infinite illusion and absolute physical presence. In that way I keep my ideas and expectations at bay and I am not crafting a story or meaning of any sort. It remains inexplicable to me and yet I see it."