Aurora, Per III: Daily Color Progression

Alfred Jensen merged color theory with grids and symmetrical arrangements of writing, numbers, signs, and symbols, to transmute complex scientific, linguistic, and mathematical systems into thickly painted compositions. Jensen described his work as “a continuous oscillation between numerical and prismatic concerns,” drawing directly upon his wide-ranging expertise in various knowledge systems, spanning Mayan calendars, Chinese philosophy, astronomy, Pythagorean geometry, physics, and art of Central America, to name a few. Though formally abstract, Jensen’s paintings remain resolutely concrete, meant to communicate specific information. Named after the Greek goddess of dawn, this painting symmetrically depicts the sun and moon in opposite color harmonies based on German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s nineteenth-century theories of hot and cool values. Jensen diametrically opposes cool (blue, violet) with warm (yellow, red) colors in bisected, rotating orbs that revolve in a circular path, emulating the movements of celestial bodies in time and space.