Jennifer Samet interviews painter Craig Stockwell whose work is included in the 2016 deCordova New England Biennial, at the de Cordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts, on view through March 26, 2017.

Stockwell remarks: “In our contemporary political moment, there is a conversation about control and freedom happening — on both sides. The conversation between expressionist and formalist painting is a metaphor for this. It is a way to re-enact that conversation between control and loss of control on the painting surface.”