Judit Reigl emigrated to Paris in 1950, where she entered the circle of artists associated with the Surrealist poet André Breton. However, she soon struck a more independent course, emphasizing the process nature of her abstract compositions, as demonstrated by Unfolding. Working from behind the canvas so that the brushwork assumes a ghostly presence, Reigl restricted the palette to washes of dark gray punctured by terse strokes of white that dance laterally across the surface. “I work with my entire body, with arms wide open,” Reigl stated. “I inscribe the given space with motion, give it rhythm, heartbeat, tempo.”