Billowing fields of indigo, aquamarine, and sea green are punctuated by a hot red-and-yellow flame that flashes up through the centre of Paul Jenkins’s canvas. The title of the work characterises the painting as a phenomenon, evoking the artist’s intuitive approach to artmaking: ‘Technique is only the grammar of intention… But first there is sensation, both perceptive and receptive. And with sensation comes the experience of discovering’. (Jenkins quoted in Diane de Polignac Gallery, Paul Jenkins Prismes Period, online) The free application of paint, poured directly onto the canvas and manipulated with an ivory blade, recalls Jenkins’s idiosyncratic contribution to Abstract Expressionism in post-war New York and asserts his place as a key figure in the development of contemporary painterly practice.