Neil Plotkin interviews painter Ryan Cobourn on the occasion of the exhibition Ryan Cobourn: Crazy Nature at Fischbach Gallery, on view through May 25, 2012 .
Cobourn remarks: "It’s more about memory and being evocative, as opposed to painting details and specificity. I'm not really interested in specificity. I'm not really interested in how many petals are on a flower or what time of day it is. I’m not really interested in that. The paintings are more about the paint reflecting a notion or an idea. So, if like Matisse said, 'exactitude is not the truth', then something else has to be the truth, which is what painting really aspires to do."