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SCI-ART: The Science and Psychology of Color in Artwork

M-1000

"Blue is true, Yellow’s jealous, Green’s forsaken, Red’s brazen, White is love, And black is death." (Author unidentified, 1942)

Oh, really? Different cultures have different interpretation of color, how about: blue is sadness, yellow’s cowardliness, green’s freshness, red’s love, white is death, and black is power? When people say that a color has the ability to create certain moods or allow for different psychological readings, one may wonder if it is science, pseudo-science, or psychology, that effects the viewer of the color. Certainly, different ideas of color theory have been applied in principles of design, painting, photography, and film, to name a few, but what makes one’s theory about color more accurate than the other? As early as the fourteenth century, Cennino d’Andrea Cennini wrote about the proper application of color in "The Craftsman’s Handbook". According to this manuscript, rare colors such as purple or gold should be applied as holy signifiers; thus, the Madonna’s robe would occasionally be adorned in purple and angelic figures would have golden halos. One can never be certain however, which came first, the rarity of pigments or the idea of presenting the color as rare.

The same question may be asked of more modern color theory. Bauhaus artist Joseph Albers’ book Interaction of Color (1963) introduced the optical phenomenon of "simultaneous contrast", as a new way of understanding a single color appearing as two or the way in which disparate colors can appear alike in varying settings. Thus, Albers wrote and demonstrated optical varieties in which color can play on the eye. In this case, there is scientific backing for the way in which colors effect and stimulate the brain’s neurons, yet the psychological effect of color is still questionable. There have been statistics completed on how the color of certain environments, clothing, gender, and even taste all affect people. Let’s be reminded that such statistics read into a collective culture as well as define it. For artists, color is still a good medium to test how it subjectively effects the beholder of the artwork. The psychological understanding of color variations is still an open discussion based on the individual’s experience.

We look at three artists who are working today with color as their main focus to see how they deal differently with the mystery of color and its effects. The art exhibition, "Principle of Light and Color," by artist Hilary Lorenz is currently being shown at the Sara Nightingale Gallery in Water Mill, New York. Lorenz’s artwork shown in the gallery is a modern presentation of ancient healing devices that uses color as mystical power source. Having studied ideas on color related to I-Ching, Feng Shui, magic spells, witchcraft, and color therapy, the artist makes pieces that reflect both the pseudo-scientific effects and ancient beliefs of the power of color for therapy application. Lorenz refers to "The Principle of Light and Color" (1878) by Edwin Babbitt and "Spectro-Chrome Therapy" (1920) by Dinshaw Ghadiali, as well as the recent new age adaptation of Sanskrit’s chakra" (spinning wheels of light) — ideas of color and body vibration. The seven colors of chakra (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and purple) reflect the spiritual energy centers that were distinctly believed to control different aspects of life such as survival, family life, careers, relationships, creativity, knowledge, and fame.

Lorenz’s exhibition shows a variety of crafted color healing devices that invites viewers to visually, physically, and orally experience different healing situations with the use of chakra color sources. One of her pieces, Glass Knitting Needles is made to knit a chakra colored sweater that projects Wicca magic onto the wearer of the garment. Both the needles and sweaters are on display as well as a large photography series titled Incantation, it is a woman knitting a specific color sweater with the same color needles, wearing the same color dress, and sitting in the same color background setting. Lorenz also displays a series of Color Therapy Glasses that come in seven different colors to allow certain compensation for the deficiency of chakra center. For example, the yellow pair of glasses can be worn daily to help with focusing on recapturing more energy. There is a wall-mounted glass case that houses these glasses in a sterile medical manner. Also, the case shows a series of The Fetish Healing Devices which are phallic mimics of medical tools cast into different colors of glass-made color objects to be used for different healing effects according to the color.

The art piece in the show that is most physically experienced is the Healing Wall, which is a large free standing color glass tilted at an angle from the ground so that viewers can lie beneath it and receive color therapy. The variation of sixteen colors is supposed to be transmitted onto different ailing body parts and heal different organs. Sound narration of Babbitt’s actual text from 1878 is looped on tape as the audience experiences the Healing Wall and has a meditative healing moment as dictated by the narration. All of Lorenz’s art pieces seem to address the seriousness about the use of color as a healing device from ancient to modern science, but at the same time, she expresses the spoof and pseudo-scientific element of the subject matter. This exhibition is a perfect portrayal of allowing the fantasia and wonders of color superstition interact with the seriousness of authoritative medical and philosophical text documents.

Few superstitions have been more enduring than those about rainbows. Some believed that there was a pot of gold at the end, others believed that a pregnant woman standing between a double rainbow would bear twins. Perhaps the sky turning into a display of color spectrum is the greatest light spectacle on earth. From Aristotle to Descartes to Newton, the rainbow has been studied for its optical refraction as rays of light act on water droplets. And it is seen differently by every person. The natural phenomenon of sunlight as it is broken down into the colors of the spectrum allows every viewer to have a unique view of the rainbow. Until now, no artificial light has done justice in recreating this spectacle. Artist Rebecca Cummins has built a "rainbow machine" that can produce a simulated rainbow, day or night, that is akin to the real rainbow in the sky. The only difference in this artificial rainbow is that it can be produced anytime, anywhere, and not so high in the sky. Her rainbows can be made directly above eye-level, bringing the rainbow down to earth and allowing people to interact with it like never before.

With the assistance of gnomists and physicists, John Ward and Dr. Margaret Folkard of Australia, Cummins has made a steel apparatus that looks like a gigantic antennae suspended three meters from the ground. Acting as a showerhead, this machine can spray a wall of water to allow viewers to see different versions of rainbows when sun shines. At night, artificial night-light creates unanticipated color band sequences. Certainly, the machine takes away the curiosity of the makings of a natural rainbow but the psychological effect of having "captured" a rainbow is startling. In fact, Cummins asserts that "Rather than domesticate or ‘undo’ the rainbow of its magic, the Rainbow Machine aims to stimulate curiosity and awareness of our metaphysical, subjective and paradoxical relationship to nature and art/technology."

The most creative aspect of this piece is in the subtle underlying humor of a rainbow machine that allows rainbows to be placed in any new context. There is a new sensation in the possibility of being able to have a rainbow in your back yard, in your garden, or just outside your window at any time. If Cummins would share this work, not as a single art piece, but as a marketable invention, the world could access the rainbow in an entirely new way. But then again, it is in the autonomy of the art piece that makes the work unique. There is only one rainbow machine, but there are many different optical experiences seen by viewers interacting with the machine. The opportunity of the rainbow machine experience is new and rare–similar yet different from the way we actually experience rainbows made in nature.

Artist Daniel Conrad works with sequential color fields as light compositions for exhibition and performance purposes. Conrad makes light boxes that show a range of changing colors and abstract shapes and calls them color organs or Chromaccord, meaning colors together. He uses Joseph Albers’ text of color relationship and plays with the optical illusions of color schemes where different sequences of color change at such a slow rate that they stimulate neural responses and effect the visual cortex to make connections from one color sequence to another. This in-between moment of change allows the viewer to visualize hallucinogenic after images causing different colors and shapes to morph from one another, thus creating a mechanical animation box that magically produces an optical illusion of filling-in color and shape transitions. Conrad further states, "I hoped that more moderate changes of hue and value, a sort of a retinal massage, would produce a gentler form of internal journey that could be ‘owned’ by the viewer."

In the spirit of other color machines made in the past such as one made by a French mathematician Louis Bertrand Castel in 1735 and another built by an English art professor Alexander Wallace Rimington in 1890, Conrad makes visually stimulating color boxes that refer to the world of music. He states, "I have come to compare to a flute in its range of function because it has great beauty within a limited range of options. By accepting a static arrangement of color fields, the Chromaccord gives the performer the ability to improvise freely with chromatic relationships." Conrad insists on not introducing any subject matter in order to keep the experience of seeing the box purely abstract and hypnotic, similar to the way in which one would appreciate and internalize music. To Conrad, visuality is a form of external expression, one he calls visual signals of identification (for example, identifying objects by seeing them), whereas auditory signals are used for communication and for internal emotional experience. Sometimes, Conrad makes color light boxes to display on gallery walls, in which case, he uses a microchip computer in the box that programs the change of colors. When displayed on the wall, the Chromaccord becomes a moving color field painting of a sort. The main purpose of his color-organs, however, is to produce collaborative sound and visual performances. When Conrad collaborates with sound artists such as Ian Nagoski, Terry Riley and others, his light box shifts its function from acting as wall piece to becoming the main theatrical performer. Conrad operates switches that change color and shape sequences, allowing his abstract visual medium to improvise with the sound performance. The moment of improvising chromoccords, Conrad refers as the moment of "chromatic syntax", which is mastering the play of neural responses that can match or contradict subsequent color schemes. Conrad’s chromaccord invention is one that he refers to as "a kinetic color art form that derives its power from subtle but potent perceptual interaction." That is, a color light box that is as seductive to the audience as any musical score and one that allows unique interpretive experience to the viewers. o

Hilary Lorenz is a New York based artist who is showing her body of work concurrently at two places in New York. Her exhibition "Garden of Auspicious Rocks" at the Amramona Studio (65 West 37th Street, 4th Floor) runs till January 19th and "The Principle of Light and Color" exhibition at Sara Nightingale Gallery in Water Mill runs till the end of the month as well. (www.hilarylorenz.com). Rebecca Cummins is an Australian-American artist who is now working in Seattle, Washington, and teaching Photography at the School of Art, University of Washington. (art.washington.edu/div_art/photography/r_cummins_bio_4.html). Daniel Conrad is a Baltimore based artist who teaches physics at the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. He has been making ‘light machines for performing colored light’ since 1971 and coined the name Chromaccord for an article in LEONARDO in 1998. (www.chromaccord.net)

M-1000 is the pen name of artist MINALIZA1000. The SCI-ART article series is made possible with assistance from Art & Science Collaborations, Inc. (ASCI) This pioneering NYC organization was founded in 1988 by Cynthia Pannucci (www.asci.org).

*This article is published in NY Arts Magazine, (January 2003, Vol. 8. No.1.). [www.nyartsmagazine.com]