Phillip J. Mellen conducts an in-depth interview with painter Paul Behnke about his work.

Behnke talks several times in the interview about his spontaneous, materials-based approach. "To me," he comments, "especially at the beginning, the work is all about the materials, I just start. I don't have any preconceived colors I'm going to use… that all evolves as the work progresses. I do a lot of alternating… there's a lot of going back and forth in my mind between what to leave in and what to leave out, that's a tension that I want to be apparent in my work, that tension of what you keep and what you do away with – how those things are constantly jostling and competing with each other."