Olafur Eliasson: Some Ideas about Colour

Olafur Eliasson has easily become one of my favourite artists. I've selected a section that I found thought provoking. For those who are interested in ideas surrounding colour. You should definitely look this article up!

'Even though one of the largest intercultural constructions is the agreement about what characterizes each color, there is still a large amount of individual opinion about the subject. Color has in its abstraction an enormous psychological and associative potential, and even though it has been cultivated to the extreme, the amount of individuality in experiencing colors is equally extreme. This points to the fact that color doesn’t exist in itself but only when looked at. The unique fact that color only materializes when light bounces off a surface onto our retinas shows us that the analysis of colors is, in fact, about the ability to analyze ourselves. That color is a construction, dependent on the individual, also becomes clear when we look at color constancy, which is another interesting aspect of our color perception. Scientific research shows that our experience of the colors of specific objects often is constant despite significant changes in ambient light. This means that an object looks the same to us even though its surface color may change considerably when it is, for instance, carried from one light setting into another or is placed next to a dark surface rather than a light one, and so on. In other words, for pragmatic reasons we perceive an object as being the same over time, but actually a large number of micro-transformations occur, continually negotiating the object’s relationship to its surroundings. This I find really interesting because it means that objects always shift or mutate over time, and, if we become aware of this constant movement, we may be able to understand the world as a much more open, negotiable space than we usually think it is.'

Eliasson, Olafur. Olafur Eliasson. http://www.olafureliasson.net/exhibitions/take_your_time_2.html (accessed 2013).

—. "Some Ideas about Colour." Olafur Eliasson: Your Colour Memory, 2006.

Talk week.

I got such relevant and positive feedback from Talk week! What a great opportunity to meet new people who share common interests.

Not the greatest photograph, but this is the selected work I presented for my group.

Group in process of critiquing my work!

My series of work has no title,  mainly because I did not want to give any clues to my spectators so that they could have an open frame of mind to critique my work. One of the participants was interested in the way my work was installed 'Four distinct works with four different directions- optical, painterly, pointelle and sculptural aspects are at play'.

Suggestions included the idea of  using scale to create an environment that invites viewers to walk within the work and integrate themselves with the work. A participant commented that my work seems mobile, and therefore could be taken out of the studio and into the public.

Theres a lot more feedback that I had received in that 30 minutes of conversation but I won't reiterate each point here. I know there is still a lot of room for experiment and installation opportunities. I am relieved that I don't feel lost about the direction that my work is heading and I'm excited about what I'll get up to next. I'm surprised I'm not bored of screen printing yet and I think I will try making work at a much larger scale. I've been thinking about using different transparent materials such as glass and mirrors and I'm sure they will provide different conversations at will hopefully lead me onto new unexpected territories.

Thinking through making.

I've been screen printing on a variety of transparent surfaces such as plastic ( PVC) and perspex. The subject matter started of with the word ' Colour'. What is it about colour that drives my work? I that about the idea of :
1) colour seperation/ layering
2) colour through light ( hence the transparent material)
3) colour rhythms and patterns

How I understand my thinking towards my practice. Funny how it already looks like my artwork.

There is a ' buzziness' in the eye of the beholder when my work is perceived.  In some cases I have deliberately hung my plastic so that natural folds take place and you get this strange complexity of coloured pixels overlaying each other. Much like those you get of a print, but zoomed in.

There was a comment about rhythm being predominant in this series of work.  With pattern there is repetition and with repetition there is predictability. What if I disrupt the rhythm? How does that change  the 'beauty' or order in the work? Something to think about and maybe approach in my future pieces.

I never explained why I am fond of clear materials. In dealing with colour and light, I did not want to use paper or any white surface for light to bounce of it. Clear plastic accepts all light that passes through it, giving my work slightly different effects depending on the time of the day or specific light. This brings me to the idea that colour is not grounded and is constantly evolving and changing.

Workbook notes.

I thought it would be a good idea to share some pages from my workbook/ visual diary. Below are some early pages that I had done at the beginning of the year. I'm a bit torn between dedicating all of my notes to this blog or to m workbook. They both offer different pros and cons.

This is how I started my second year. Thinking about what I'm interested in and how I could carry my thoughts further.

Made some work and wrote what I found successful.

Picking out themes and more ideas...

Notes from a colour talk in studio.

Dialogic Conversation

One of our tasks for the materiality drawing paper was to write a fictional interview or conversation with our material that accounts for our material exploration ( our Material taxonomy) in the first couple of weeks. This is meant to be a  fun creative piece of writing so read it with an open mind!

Material Taxonomy
Interview for a material partner in the Annual Blind Dating Convention (ABDC).

Hi! Thank you for giving me the opportunity to ask you a range of questions to see if you’re a match.
Let’s do this.

I love food, do you?
I must admit, I’m known to wrap food up; I do a good job keeping the heat in and I can seal the air, which keeps the food inside fresh.

Do you like music?
It’s hard to listen to anything else when I already make a lot of noise myself. If you wave me around or crumple me up into a ball I sound like rain.

Would you like to go out for a drink?
I’m pretty lightweight and I can’t absorb liquids, though I am able to hold a handful for a long period of time.

Would you consider yourself outgoing?
I’m happy for a stroll out, but I tend to get lost when the wind is strong. Also, I have an unfortunate tendency to hurt people’s eyes because I am a shiny surface, which makes me reflect light.

I’m an environmentally conscious person, what about you?
I’m 100% recyclable but I’m not biodegradable. I can be chemically degradable if I am exposed to certain acids.

If a situation heats up, what will you do?
I can handle hot situations because I’m a good conductor, but never put me in a microwave. I reflect heat.

How do you intend to support me?
It depends what shape or form I’m in. When I’m a single sheet, it’s very difficult. I break if I get poked and when I am ripped, it’s hard to control the direction of the tear. However, if you apply pressure on me and turn me into a tight form like a solid ball, I become much more robust. Finally, I’m quite bendy if you roll me up.

What supports you?
Any kind of object really, I am very adaptive with most surfaces and can mimic its shape, texture, and form like a mould thus creating an interesting play between positive and negative space.

Are you easy to handle?
It’s depends how much of me you have! I can vary in volume and weight. The more you have, the stronger and heavier I am.

When I hug you, will you crumble?

Definitely, I am very delicate; you might even tear me apart!  I change shape when I get crushed and develop creases and wrinkles that never fully go away even when I’m stretched out again. The slightest touch of a fingertip will leave an imprint on me.

Are there any other qualities that I should know about?
I’m quite a versatile material depending on how I am handled. I’m very useful in manufacturing processes such as packaging, and I’m famous enough to be up on the periodic table.

Spark.

These are a few of my prints from the intaglio workshop. Looks rather minimalistic but it was the spark that ignited everything else that I'm working on now! My goal was to figure out  if I could present the 'inbetween colour'. I found it challenging because there were so many things to take into consideration- how textured my plate was, how long I left the paper in the water, how much ink I applied and rubbed off, how tight the press was etc. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the fact that no matter how much control I had over the technicalities of my prints, the end result would be unpredictable.

Moving along, I decided to switch my materials and went from Intalgio to screen printing.

This is the moment I fell in love with transparency and was certain that I wanted to explore its possibilites. On a slight side note, I watched a video of Spencer Finch talking about the play between transparency and reflectivity. What a great thought. Where do we find the moment where something transparent switches to something reflective? Through time and light?

More coming soon..