Phenomena Spectrum Guardian

Colors spill and blossom across this canvas the way ink spreads when it hits water. The painting comes from Paul Jenkins, an American artist who found his own path in the late 1950s and 1960s by setting the brush aside almost entirely. He poured thinned paint straight onto the surface, then tilted the canvas so gravity could pull the color where it wanted to go. Reds, yellows, greens, and blues run into one another here, frozen at the exact moment they seemed to be moving.

Jenkins gave nearly all his paintings the same name, "Phenomena," which suits art that behaves like a small act of nature. He shared some common ground with the Abstract Expressionists, yet his obsession with color and happy accidents gave him a voice all his own. On the left of this piece, a few thin lines curve gently across the empty space and steady the swirling burst of color on the right. The whole thing manages to feel restful and lively at once, a bit like the sky changing at dawn.

Soft, feathered edges show where the paint pooled and settled as it dried, proof that Jenkins never held complete command over the result. That balance of planning and chance was the whole idea. He once said he wanted to let the paint speak for itself, and in a work like this one, it clearly has plenty to say.