“When I started to pour paint, there was no return—you can’t un-pour it,” says the American artist Pat Steir. “It’s there. So I could start a new one, but I couldn’t change what I had. Like life.” Steir’s career began in the 1960s, in illustration. Distracted by Minimalism and Conceptual art, by Mark Rothko’s canvases of distilled color, she began pairing images and text that questioned perception. In the 1980s, when she delved into Zen Buddhism and Daoist thought, her work took a lyrical turn. Steir’s new approach was performative: it saw her pouring paint onto large canvases. Almost 20 years after she first showed in Rome, Steir’s work comes to the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea. She pays tribute to the Italian capital with a new painting, Roman Rainbow, inspired by its earthy, warm colors. Other recent works are also on view. —Elena Clavarino