Past
| PAUL JENKINS | |||||||||||
OPENING: Thursday, October 9, 2025 at 6:00 PM DATES: October 9 – November 15, 2025 Galleria Biasutti & Biasutti is pleased to present an exhibition dedicated to Paul Jenkins (Kansas City, Missouri, 1923 – New York, 2012), a central figure in postwar American painting, an independent interpreter of Abstract Expressionism, and a master of exploring painting as an energetic and spiritual flow. The exhibition brings together a selection of works on paper and canvas created between the 1950s and 1980s, tracing a transversal yet coherent path that highlights the evolution of the artist’s visual language. Among the works on display, pieces such as Ghosts and Tattooed Deer Hunter (both from 1954) clearly show Jenkins’ early interest in the liquid nature of painting. This inclination toward fluidity—both material and mental—would become a constant in his practice, spanning decades of experimentation and shaping an approach in which color becomes a medium for inner revelation. Alongside the expressionist impulse of his early years, Jenkins developed a pictorial vision deeply nourished by his relationship with European tradition. His engagement with the great painting of the past enriched his work with historical and symbolic dimensions that go beyond the gestural energy of Abstract Expressionism. From 1959 onward, Jenkins titled his works Phenomena, framing the act of painting as an expression of the constant phenomenological transformation that affects both reality and subjective perception—translated in his art into a concrete visibility of the event itself. Examples of this are large canvases included in the exhibition, such as Phenomena Lunar Insistence (1968/69) and Phenomena Euphrates Wind Bell (1979), where Jenkins masterfully controls the painted gesture through a refined use of poured acrylic, modulated with the couteau, shaping translucent, layered fields where color and veils flow like spiritual matter. Accompanying these are significant watercolors—such as Phenomena Red’s Silver Vein (1972) and Phenomena Carpentess (1977)—highlighting Jenkins’ versatility on paper: light-filled, luminous works that are nevertheless dense with symbolism, showcasing his mastery over the unpredictability of water and pigment. The exhibition’s journey ideally concludes with Phenomena Prism Mantra (1986), where the color flows around geometric lacunae, mostly triangular, characteristic of Jenkins’ 1980s production. These unpainted areas carry a luminous and spatial quality, evoking the Eastern notion of full/empty. Here, painting becomes a true emanation: a presence vibrating between silence and light. Through this path, the exhibition does not aim to present a mere stylistic chronology, but rather to convey the coherence of a vision: that of an artist who transformed color into a spiritual experience, taking painting beyond the boundaries of form and time.
Galleria Biasutti & Biasutti, Via Bonafous, 7/L – 10123 Torino | |||||||||||