Paul Jenkins is best known for his Phenomena paintings. After becoming an established abstract expressionist, Jenkins began to refer to himself as an ‘abstract phenomenist’. He believed that his paintings embodied spiritual reflections on the present moment.
In Phenomena paintings, Jenkins depicts flowing veils of colour that overlap and interact with one another. Each artwork features transparent and opaque abstract forms that seep and bleed vivid colour. The work demonstrates Jenkins’ visceral painting method and attention to interactions between colour, texture, and form.
Influenced by Goethe’s colour theories and the writings of Carl Jung and Immanuel Kant, Jenkins began titling his work Phenomena followed by key words or phrases, often linked to the psychological and physiological experience of the world around him. Each Phenomena painting embraces the idea that painting can expand the possibilities of abstract art by capturing a feeling or moment on paper. Speaking of his work Phenomena, Yonder Near (1964) Jenkins said, ‘To me it has always been the image of the archetype of that which is near and that which is far in the instantaneous psychic moment. Now if anyone can actually paint such a feeling, idea, or image remains possibly for history to decide. It is a presumption on my part but after all, that is one of the expanding possibilities of Abstract painting: that which makes something felt which is not explicitly seen.’
