Exorcist

Deep reds, glowing purples, and sudden bursts of golden light tumble across this canvas like a storm caught in the middle of breaking. Called "Exorcist," the painting is the work of Paul Jenkins, an American artist who made his name in the mid-1900s through his ties to Abstract Expressionism and the loose, luminous approach known as Color Field painting. Jenkins had an unusual method. Rather than reaching for a brush, he poured thin paint straight onto the canvas and tilted the surface, letting gravity pull the colors into rivers and pools. The finished piece seems to shimmer with motion, as if the paint might keep flowing right off the edge.

Part of the fun here is how the image hovers between pure abstraction and something you almost recognize. Stare a while and you may spot a smoldering hillside, a rocky ledge, or clouds tearing open across the sky. Jenkins welcomed that uncertainty. He once described wanting his paintings to feel like phenomena instead of fixed scenes, closer to the experience of light or water than a picture of any single thing. The forceful title hints at some kind of struggle or release, though he tended to leave the final reading up to whoever was standing in front of the work.

Born in Kansas City in 1923, Jenkins divided much of his life between New York and Paris, and you can sense both cities in his art, the bold energy of one and the refined touch of the other. Read this canvas as a fiery landscape or simply enjoy the way the colors bleed and blend into each other, and either way it holds up to a long, unhurried look.