Elliott Green’s “Human Nature” is one of the early hits of the 2017 art scene. Showing at the Pierogi Gallery on the Lower East Side of Manhattan (it closes March 26), Green’s show won praise from critics across the spectrum, including the New York Times, and the more specialized art press. His paintings seem to have a particular appeal for writers and poets—the catalogue essay was written by a poet, Jana Prikryl—in part because his pictures, his landscapes as well as his figurative pieces, tell stories. But there’s also a remarkably tactile feel to Green’s canvases, evidence of someone who loves not only paint, but also the brush, and other tools he uses to apply paint. He’s a painter’s painter.

I’ve known Green for about twenty years, and have some of his paintings and drawings, which instruct and gladden me every time I look at them. A 57-year-old native of Detroit, Michigan, Green moved from Manhattan to Hudson, New York in 2005, where I visited him in his studio recently. We spoke about his latest show, his favorite painters, and a new passion—Instagram.