Alphard 1961

Morris Louis made this painting, Alphard, with acrylic on canvas. Look at how he’s poured these rivulets of colour, letting them run down the canvas – that’s process right there, gravity doing its thing! The paint isn’t thick or gloopy, but super thin, almost like coloured water, which allows the weave of the canvas to shine through. Notice how the colours pool and bleed into each other. Take the purple stripe, how it subtly edges into the brown. The painting isn’t about making a perfect image, but about letting the materials do their thing, a dance between the artist and the paint. For me, this piece has a lot of connection with the later work of Helen Frankenthaler, particularly in how both artists treat the canvas as a field where colour can roam freely. With a piece like this, there's no right or wrong answer, just a chance to think about how colours can make us feel.