Systole And Diastole 1962

Alfred Jensen made this painting, Systole and Diastole, with what looks like oil on canvas, and wow, it’s like a game board that’s been coded with numbers and arrows, all packed into a tight grid. You know, looking at this, I'm reminded of the push and pull in painting itself. You see the thick globs of paint, kind of like I do in my own work, where the physicality of the medium is right there on the surface. It makes you think about the labor, the back-and-forth—the systole and diastole—of the artist's hand. I can imagine Jensen building it up layer by layer, maybe starting with an idea, then letting the paint take over. Those sharp little arrows and numbers aren’t just sitting there, they're almost humming. Like, did he want to create a secret system? Or just disrupt any easy way of reading? Either way, the dude was clearly in conversation with color theory and abstract systems.