December 21, 2016

Rich & Cool



Rich & Cool, from the Single Breakthrough series, 2016, heavy body acrylics mixed with ceramic stucco and iridescent medium, 18" x 24".



























December 9, 2016

"Homage to Goethe's 'Theory of Colours' (1810)"

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) was a German writer, politician, and scientist. He is most often remembered for his two-part tragedy Faust, part I was published in 1808 and part II in 1832.

In 1810 he published his Theory of Colours, which was his analysis on the nature, function, and psychology of colors. He was the first to systematically study the psychological effects of color. He was ahead of his time in many ways, though his treatise was widely disregarded. Goethe anticipated Edwald Hering's opponent process theory (1892), which is the foundation of complimentary colors. In Theory of Colours Goethe wrote,
"The colours diametrically opposed to each other in this diagram are those which reciprocally evoke each other in the eye. Thus, yellow demands violet; orange [demands] blue; purple [demands] green; and vice versa: thus... all intermediate gradations reciprocally evoke each other; the simpler colour demanding the compound, and vice versa."
Another significant inclusion in Goethe's doctrine was his disagreement with Sir Isaac Newton on the subject of light and by extension darkness. I will return to this controversial idea in a future post.

I painted Homage to Goethe's 'Theory of Colors' (1810), in response to Goethe's writings on the psychological effects of hues, tints, and shades. The colors in this painting are my imaginative perceptions and initial reactions to his recorded philosophies on color, and the human psyche's visceral reactions to it.

Though repudiated by most of the science community, many artists and philosophers like Phillip Otto Runge, J.M.W. Turner, Schopenhauer, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Wassily Kandinsky adopted his theories. His Theory of Colours served as the base on which future color theorists would build their own treatise.



Homage to Goethe's 'Theory of Colors' (1810), 2016, heavy body acrylics mixed with ceramic stucco and iridescent medium, 18"x24".







































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December 7, 2016

"Interactions with Peach"



Interactions with Peach, from the Single Breakthrough series, 2016, heavy bodied acrylics mixed with ceramic stucco and iridescent medium, 18" x 24".