Some artists use stripes as a way to measure space. Some use them as rhythm, structure, pattern, discipline, refusal, or optical vibration. With Morris Louis, the stripe begins somewhere else. It begins with liquid paint, raw canvas, gravity, and a room too small for the scale of what he wanted to make.

The mid-20th century witnessed a seismic shift in the landscape of American art, with the emergence of Abstract Expressionism marking a departure from European traditions and establishing New York as a new global art center. At the heart of this transformative period were two towering figures: Clement Greenberg, a highly influential art critic whose formalist aesthetic shaped the discourse around modern art, and Jackson Pollock, an artistic innovator who revolutionized painting with his energetic "drip" technique