Karolle Rabarison interviews painter Joanne Greenbaum about her work which was recently on view at Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York.

Greenbaum comments: "Most of the time, I’m not thinking of a viewer. In fact, the only viewer I really think about is myself. I imagine that I am the ideal viewer to that work, and make the painting that that viewer wants to see, but really I don’t proceed and work with someone looking over my shoulder. The process of making these paintings is very incremental and layered in that I carry the painting in me for the duration of making that painting. So I am never far away from it. I see things in the paintings that maybe other people don’t see, and the elements that I put in there have a very specific painterly meaning to me. I can’t control what people see in the paintings, and I don’t want to. I like the fact that the viewer sometimes has no idea what these paintings mean, and what they are supposed to be. I don’t mind that the conglomeration of their elements doesn’t make much sense in the real world, or even the painting world. That’s what intrigues me."