Colour Experiments in my Immaginary Universes - Abstract

Colour Experiments in my Imaginary Universes
João Brehm*

* Corresponding author: joao.brehm@gmail.com

My interest in Colour started as a Painter in 1969/70 using the cosmic universe, a theme that has always fascinated me. I used fluorescent colours, which I have never stopped using, for more light and vibrancy. They were cut shapes on flat canvas.
My work then turned to a philosophical and provocative approach, utopian classification of dreamed universes. I spent a few months experimenting various depth-enhancing techniques to increase the perception of a third dimension.
After a period working on outer space landscapes, I began to use a pictorial system based on dots, sprays (which are billions of dots), various types of paint spraying, metallic and fluorescent colours and other exploratory techniques in which ink drips are not the random result of an abstract or purely visual expression, but rather concrete objects. I have catalogued stars, galaxies and other imaginary celestial bodies in a poetic attitude of confrontation between art and science, images of a utopian photographed space, in which the universe is a pretext for another use of colour. Later I developed spectral ranges of true stars, others invented, as well as the solar spectrum.
Since everything that exists is constituted by points and it is thought that the infinitely large obeys to the same laws as the infinitely small, I dared to explore the sub-atomic world in the same way as the cosmic universe. I started using diverse colours in metallic and neutral backgrounds in a totally rigid and smooth surface (PVC), with no idea of atmosphere or vacuum, a system in which the depth of illusory space, apparent movement and light could nevertheless exist.
More recently I have returned to coloured canvas and reflective materials allowing endless associative games, contrasts, chromatisms, different perceptions of colour, always trying to create the illusion of a three-dimensional space searching for the light that sources colour as the human eye perceives it.
During the course of my work I have tried to answer several questions related to colour. Is yellow brighter on a black or neutral background? A large blue point seems closer than a small point? Do warm colours approach and cold colours move away? Can movement be suggested by the arrangement of colours in space? Is colour perception altered by scale, contrast with other colours, greater or lesser intensity of the pigment, added white or black, and/or by the combination of primary or complementary colours?
Overall, my work is based on experimentation, trial, error and correction, and using improbable chromatic combinations. A poetic approach in search of the simplicity of a certain idea of ​​the Beautiful.
Despite all these years of searching for a different but spontaneously natural language, I feel that I am still at the beginning of the path and that the more I paint the more I learn to paint. A journey through Colour is an endless journey.

Keywords: colour, dots, light, space, universe