First solo show in the gallery dedicated to Paul Jenkins, the exhibition brings together approximately 15 works by the artist, tracing the American painter’s entire career. It includes seminal works from the second half of the 1950s to more recent creations from the end of the 1980s, with the aim of presenting one of the most significant abstract painters of the post-war period to the Italian public.

Thanks to a free and intuitive pictorial approach, the exhibited works demonstrate the specificity of Jenkins’ painting, iconic of the potential of colour and its infinite emotional metamorphoses. The project revolves around a nucleus of historical and large-scale works created in the 1950s in dialogue with later works with softer tones, projected towards inner reflection and mysticism.
Jenkins’ works are characterised by broad overlapping colours that create glassy glazes, transparency effects and translucent visions. While his early works were done in oils, from 1959-1960, Jenkins gradually switched to acrylic, which highlights the effect of transparency and overlapping colours.

‘Abstract phenomenist’ as he liked to call himself, influenced by Goethe’s theories of colour, from the late 1950s onwards, Jenkins decides to precede the titles of his works with the term ‘phenomena’ followed by a key word or phrase. Executed in acrylic, in his Phenomena paintings Jenkins determines the flow of colour with an ivory knife, a tool that allows him to control and shape the diluted pigment without leaving marks on the surface.