Alan Davie
(1920 - 2014)
 

James Alan Davie was a Scottish painter and musician.  Davie travelled widely and in Venice became influenced by other painters of the period, such as Paul Klee, Jackson Pollock and Joan Miró, as well as by a wide range of cultural symbols. In particular, his painting style owes much to his affinity with Zen. Having read Eugen Herrigel's book Zen in the Art of Archery (1953), he assimilated the spontaneity which Zen emphasises. Declaring that the spiritual path is incompatible with planning ahead, he attempted to paint as automatically as possible, which was intended to bring forth elements of his unconscious. In this, he shared a vision with surrealist painters such as Miró, and he was also fascinated by the work of psychoanalyst Carl Jung. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Davie

Lush Life No. 1
1961
Oil on canvas
213 x 173 cm
National Galleries Scotland

https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/43468

In this painting Davie strove to paint spontaneously, without consciously deciding on the structure of the work. He was interested in the Zen Buddhist idea of being free from conscious control. However, the paintings he made during this period still have a definite structure and often have similar features. For example, the green triangle in the top left of the painting is reminiscent of Blue Triangle Enters. In the later 1950s and 1960s Davie's brushwork became more controlled and the imagery more legible; mysterious signs and symbols began to appear.