Palingenesis
By Lee Krasner, 1971
Bold and unapologetic, this large painting bursts with hot pink and deep green shapes that seem to push and pull against one another. Lee Krasner created "Palingenesis" in 1971, and the title itself gives us a clue about what she was after. Palingenesis is an old word meaning rebirth or regeneration, the idea of starting over and coming back to life. The curving forms and flowing lines feel like they are in constant motion, almost like plants unfurling or shapes growing across the canvas.
Krasner was a major figure in Abstract Expressionism, a movement known for big gestures and raw emotion painted directly onto large surfaces. For much of her career she was overshadowed by her husband, the famous Jackson Pollock, but in her later years she finally earned the recognition she deserved. This work comes from a period when she was painting with renewed energy and confidence, and you can feel that boldness here. The clashing colors are not meant to be pretty or calming. They are alive and a little aggressive, which fits an artist who spent decades fighting to be taken seriously.
If you spend a moment with the painting, notice how your eye keeps moving and never quite settles. That restlessness is part of the point. Krasner wanted her art to feel like a living thing rather than a fixed picture, and "Palingenesis" captures that sense of something always becoming, never finished.