“Lots of different things inform my choice of colors,” the London-based artist Ian Davenport has written. “I might lift a palette from an old painting, or, as I recently did, from the opening sequence of The Simpsons.” Davenport plays with color, sometimes intuitively, sometimes with calculation. He executes meticulous sequencing experiments, pouring paint down tilted surfaces and letting it pool at the bottom, where myriad congregating colors create a vibrant horizon between the floor and the art on the wall. This oscillation between structure and spontaneity implicitly asks a question. How much should the artist control? —E.C.