The colour of things

It is assumed that human beings experience colour in much the same way physiologically, but it is an assumption that cannot be proven in objective terms. Colour is a subjective experience that defies objectification. Although we do recognise certain objective principles of colour as properties of light interacting with physical (chemical or molecular) structures, we also recognise that they do not exist as an independent property of things, or even at all, unless perceived.

The experience of colour can be shared and agreed upon through resonance, which is a mode of communication based on the matching of wavelengths. To be on the same wavelength, is to share an understanding. As such, colour has come to stand for the expression of other non- objectifiable experiences, such as emotional or sensational experiences. When we talk about the colour of things, it is not then just their appearance, but how they feel to us, how they affect us, and in turn, recognising that it is how we are also, that can affect the very nature of what we see.
Anais Nin said, “we see the world not as it is, but as we are”.

Most of us would agree with that sentiment to an extent, because we will have observed how our emotional or conditioned selves, impacts on the quality and nature of our experience. My interests lie in investigating the boundaries or relationships between, subjectivity and objectivity. In what way, and to what extent, does subjectivity or individual consciousness, play a role in not only how we observe reality, but the making and shaping of it. The playground series in this body of work evokes associative play and wonder, in an attempt to address the ultimate question; does form follow consciousness?

Art is a manifestation of form following consciousness. In whatever embodied states as art forms, the full energetic spectrum of play through its oppositional and complimentary orientations of attraction and pursuit, is engaged. But does life imitate art as Oscar Wilde suggested? Or is it possible to dispense with the boundary between art and life altogether, and view experience as a conscious creation, or co-creation along with objectifiable physicality, that is constantly emerging or unfolding in accordance with our internal state, our essential selves?

I have used the occasion of losing my home and studio as a case study to apply the findings of my recent research work into creativity, by employing artistic activity as a priming mechanism to cultivate a decisively life affecting inner state.

The O(map) theory defines creativity as the life force of evolving consciousness, recognising an intrinsic, inextricable relationship between consciousness and the creation of emergent reality. If form follows consciousness, then attending to my inner state within my current experience, is of paramount importance if I am to manifest desired outcomes.

Loss, grief, anxiety and the fear of homelessness, are powerful negative energies from which I do not wish to build either my current experience or my emergent reality. Immersing myself in the colour of things, has allowed me to create a lived experience conducive to attracting a desired outcome, the articulation of which I tried to describe to my sister in this letter:

Every day that I work, I seem not to be at all concerned to have less and less control of the thing. That is a good thing by the way, it has entered a natural phase, no stress or force, just the doing of it, the letting it come and be as it is. I am happy out, in the zone and in flow…that’s the place to be alert, let go and let come. And what is showing up now even in the ordinary stuff is the wonder of the ordinary stuff and the visual stimulation, the colour and energy of life reflected in its random shifts as I move about within this space on a planet rotating and moving within space. I am acutely aware of constantly orbiting…nothing seems to have a place around me, things are here, then they are there, one moment darkly brooding the next vibrating as though electrocuted by the light.

Objects seem to have auras, or energetic properties of colour, instead of being inherently coloured. Light is like some great conscious eye of attention that looks upon a thing as though saying, this colour that I give you is how I love you. And the light loves all equally. No editing, no manipulation, full beam always…Photons never tire or slow down…the concept of the constant is difficult to truly appreciate, it is simply too awesome. And things resonate only with that for which they have a capacity, but what is our capacity for resonance -us, with a spectrum of consciousness within an unbound undeterminable conscious realm?

In the beginning, I did arrange things playfully within the field of the painting to reflect the way I tend to notice things in a playful manner, negating simply seeing from my vertical orientation to the ground, but I know now that it is so because I cannot seem to hold them still, because when I try to hold still, everything moves and I feel dizzy and even disorientated. I must move “with” – or break apart. The big playground reflects how things seem not to have a fixed position even when we fix them with our attention. The orbiting, the recognition and acceptance of it, started there, though I did not articulate it as such at the time. As I started on this project – “to try to capture as I let go”, the extraordinary in the everyday experience of things, I soon realised that any attempt to design, manipulate or edit, fell flat. Any attempt to predetermine my course, simply derailed.

I collected at first, hundreds of images that fascinated me at the time of acquisition, only to discard them for the most immediate stimulation. When I walked into the room one night and saw the table top for example, I found it so naturally appealing, so mesmerising, even the crumpled tin foil from a homemade flap jack just eaten, that I knew that was my next painting. I tried to arrange a companion piece the next morning, the table top in day light, but no arrangement worked, and having spent the morning shifting things slightly here and there, I realised I was killing something essential by interference, by contrivance. So, this body of work is responsive rather than contemplative.

Because I am leaving here soon, I thought it would be contemplative, full of memory and longing, but it is quite the opposite. It is full of life, a record of moving with…being with, creating with. When I finished my last painting…I got up off my chair and stood back to observe it there, a place or space I occupied while working.

And what I captured in that moment is my current painting…the chair there, more a big dark “space” cut in the fabric of things, than just an object in silhouette. I am in that place/space, at home in myself, every day now, painting in still life, life that is never still.

And then just as I was finishing the work, the extraordinary happened. A place that I can afford, and that I can work in, showed up. When I was given notice some months ago, my initial reaction was to panic, the market scarce and beyond my means, prompted me to run about like a headless chicken, even breaking into derelict buildings to see if squatting were possible. Then I decided on the course of action – to trust the creative force and concentrate on cultivating my inner state through the work. To trust that when the time came to move, I would simply meet the right place at the right time. As so it is.
Life is very mysterious is it not?