Cecily Brown’s studio – an airy, light-filled loft overlooking the bustle of New York’s Union Square – is, at any given moment, home to as many as 50 works in various stages of completion. When I visit one afternoon in July, paintings and drawings of loosely defined figures emerging from energetic arrays of sweeping, abstract strokes seem to line almost every available surface, propped up in stacks against the walls or lying on the floor to dry. In spite of the summer heat, the studio is busy with activity. Brown is currently preparing for a survey of her work at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark, which will open in November – the latest in a series of solo exhibitions at the museum devoted to contemporary painters...