Phenomena Oracle Received 1972

Paul Jenkins made this watercolor, Phenomena Oracle Received, with fluid, translucent washes of color. I can almost feel Jenkins at work, coaxing these colors across the surface, tilting the paper, letting the pigments mingle and bleed into one another. He surrenders some control to the medium, allowing chance and intuition to guide his hand. I wonder what kind of conversations he had with the paint. The deep blues and reds pull my eye in, and then there’s this bright explosion of yellows and oranges that feels like a burst of energy. It makes me think of Helen Frankenthaler's soak-stain paintings. Artists have always borrowed, stolen, and riffed off of each other, in an ongoing exchange of ideas across time, inspiring one another’s creativity. Each stroke, each gesture, is a record of the artist's presence, embracing ambiguity and uncertainty.