Alpha-Phi 1961

Morris Louis coaxed these rivulets of acrylic down a canvas sometime before 1962. Just look at these saturated colours—earthy reds, oranges, greens, browns, and blues hugging the edges of the canvas, pooling and bleeding, leaving a vast expanse of white. It’s almost as if the painting is holding its breath, suspended in a moment of silent anticipation. You can see the ghost of Helen Frankenthaler in this work, a kind of call and response across the decades. I can imagine Louis tilting the canvas, allowing gravity to dictate the flow, surrendering control to the elemental forces at play. It’s like he's conducting a delicate dance between intention and chance, a balance so many painters try to achieve. It’s brave, like tightrope walking without a net. Painters are constantly looking at and learning from each other, riffing on each other's moves like jazz musicians trading solos. Each gesture, each colour choice, is a wink, a nod, a conversation across time and space.