The Paintings Maya Chen Almost Destroyed

Chen keeps the failures where she can see them. Not out of sentiment — she says a painting she has given up on is the only honest record of what she was trying to do.

We spent an afternoon in her Chicago studio turning canvases around one at a time. Two were unrecoverable. One became Untitled No. 14, the largest work in After Midnight.

"I don't really know when a painting is finished. I just know when touching it again would make it worse."