Colour Experiments in my Imaginary Universes
João Brehm*
* Corresponding author: joao.brehm@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
Colour is, as scientifically established, the light reflected or absorbed by matter as perceived by the human eye. Although the laws of physics are considered universal, in the unknown cosmic space these conditions may not be the same. The colour is, therefore a phenomenon that results from our view of the world and that may also involve other brain abilities that are not currently known. Based on this principle, I have been experimenting various abnormal situations that disturb our common vision without surrealizing. Since the colour is a very vast world of research, all the experiments I undertake are about colour-pigment. In this presentation I summarize how I have been addressing the issues of light, depth and dimension fundamentally related to the use of colour, in universes that are my own creation.
Keywords: colour, dots, light, space, universe
INTRODUCTION
Much of the Art in Antiquity has been coloured (constructions, sculptures, etc.). The painting has almost disappeared and the materials have been destroyed/deteriorated with time resulting in an incomplete vision of the past. I then imagined the great ancient temples twinkling in wonderful colours. Similarly, looking at the sky and the infinite points of light, almost always white or yellow, I had the notion that all these stars could be of different combinations of colours, many of which may not be captured in the luminous spectrum as we receive it. It must also be present that the Cosmos we witness is a vision of the past. All stars and galaxies are at an incredible distance of light years and are not what they are, but what they were in very distant times. That is why I devised a cosmogonic vision in which the universe is represented in the present time. If I’m not then able to travel at an instantaneous speed or higher than the speed of the light and move in real time everywhere, then I use the imagination as a transport for that journey. What we see and know are just traces and ruins of a past where the colour has disappeared. I believe that the cosmic infinity, the whole universe, exists in the deepest of our own being. We just need to search for it, like in a game of mirrors, lenses and filters that are reflected indefinitely, interfering with our perception at every moment. One can call it soul, spirit, God, or any other metaphysical concept. Trying to get to the bottom of ourselves is to look for the universal that exists in everyone. The unknown origin. Nothing is therefore more ephemeral than the act of painting and more convenient to the consciousness of our brief passage through the world and through time.
Many authors claim that art is emotion, it cannot be explained. I largely agree and my work emerges through steps of my own evolution. Much of my work is a result of random circumstances, of the unknown and even of failed experiments which are then used in other contexts.
EXPERIMENTAL
My interest in colour started in 1969/70 using the theme of the Cosmic universe that has always fascinated me. At the time, the pictures of the astronomy books were generally in black and white. There were no powerful telescopes that would subsequently unravel the false chromatic richness of the galaxies, artificially treated. It was a new world and I began to use fluorescent colours, which I never abandoned, to get more light and chromatic vibrations. I called these works "Volumes in Space" (Figure 1 left), shapes cut out on flat funds, floating in space in different perspectives.
However, I did not immediately continue on this path, which tended to an abstract/material representation. Abroad, where I lived, I dedicated myself mainly to cinema, another great passion, along with photography. For a few years I made several films and this experience of creating atmospheres, the scenic game of light and shadow, the framing, the movement of actors, the continuity of action, human contact, editing, etc., was very useful in my activity as a painter. In 1974, I painted several zones in blue (e.g., trees, portions of land, ditches, etc.), in several European countries, that I photographed, dated and exposed. This was "The Journey".
Oddly enough, I felt the need to "return to Earth" and define plastically, in a more precise way, an idea I was trying to convey. During those years I still painted (mainly drawings) landscapes from other sidereal worlds, the series of "Outer Landscapes" (Figure 1 right). I shortened the palette to a mixture of cobalt blue with aluminium, outlining the shapes in black with some coloured dots and tone bars. They were presented as quasi-graphics, with diagrams detailing the nature of the imaginary planets, photographs, annotations of their cartography, geology, orography, atmosphere and other explanatory notes.
Figure 1 Left: Volumes in Space (1969/70), tempera on wood, 85 x 140 cm each; right: Outer Landscapes (1971/77), drawing on paperboard, 50 x 65 cm each.
Figure 1 Left: Volumes in Space (1969/70), tempera on wood, 85 x 140 cm each; right: Outer Landscapes (1971/77), drawing on paperboard, 50 x 65 cm each.
From 1978 to date I started the "Katalog–Catalogue of Celestial Bodies" aiming at painting the Cosmos. And since 2005, I purposely followed a traditional route through painting/painting and not using electrical processes or new technologies. I spent a few months experimenting techniques of creating depth in the backgrounds that would make the impression of a third dimension. I tried various types of plastic paints and acrylics painted with a paintbrush or a roller, several shades of black and dark blue, but the result was a surface too flat, a one-dimensional barrier. I then moved to spraying several overlapping layers of the same transparent or translucent ink. I finally opted for the Prussian blue which approaches to my perception of the cosmic space. To populate this territory I subsequently began to use a pictorial system based on points, sprays (which are billions of points), airbrush, various types of paint projection, metallic colours (highlighting the brightness and varying according to the angle from which they are observed), and fluorescents (which require special treatment by absorbing invisible ultra violet light and emit more light than they receive). I also used several other exploratory techniques in which the ink droplets are not the random result of an abstract expression but, on the contrary, are real objects. From each dot/point treated individually, as if it was a star or planet, my experiments lead to a visually recognized atmosphere but somehow disturbing. So to get more brightness, the droplets were painted blank and subsequently covered with several ranges of colour, one by one, looking for the tones that would best create an atmosphere of its own. I used, for instance, violet with lemon yellow, cerulean blue and phtalo blue with aluminium, fluorescent red with silver, etc. These were the “Galactic Charts” (Figure 2) where I randomly catalogued planets, stars, galaxies and other imaginary celestial bodies, in a poetic attitude of confrontation between art and the science of observation, utopian images of the universe photographed by telescopes, but in which the universe was only an excuse to explore colour. I also used diffusing areas in lighter or even metallic tones which, by their density characteristics, could not be diffuse. I continued to experience new shades, mixing pigments, using sprays for car paint and other techniques stolen from other uses. I purposely joined principles of subtractive and additive synthesis. At that time I also started the "Stellar Atlas", hand-painted notebooks and real test tubes of my experiments with colour.
Figure 2: Galactic Charts (2005/2006), acrylic on canvas, 110 x 150 cm each.
So I have been creating cosmic universes that obey their own laws: inverted eclipses, unintentional shadows, colour games that do not follow the rules of classical astronomy. It is artistic creation where the ramblings of the imagination are allowed.
In this presentation, as I am unable to address all the experiments with colour I have been undertaken, I chose to focus more on three or four periods of my work in which colour had more relevance in my "démarche". During the years of 2006/07, I painted the "Cosmic Points" (Figure 3), three panels of 200 x 200 cm each, composed by 75 smaller canvas, in which I synthesized the vision that resulted from my previous work. I addressed three possibilities of colour treatment in space. “Cosmic Points–Light” (Figure 3 left) in black or blue backgrounds presented as a space-environmental matrix with the inscription of varying celestial bodies, stars, galaxies, etc., and where the colour is presented as a light magnet. I purposely used luminous or clear colours that gave the impression of bathing the surrounding bodies in a more realistic view and according to our own conception of how to present space objects radiant or illuminated by exterior, but hidden, lights. These bursts of light tend to create the idea of a slow movement, almost imperceptible to our eyes, and are apparently farther away than the points in the first plans. They are often treated with colours that unmake that same illusion, or are lighter than the main light, or were painted with secondary and intermediate colours in softer or darker shades, or have autonomous illumination, creating a subtle game of unlikely depths. In “Cosmic points – Counterlight” (Figure 3 middle), the space is made up of thousands of points where the main stars mingle and stand out in the immensity of other points. There, the game of colours is presented as a spatial plot, more or less uniform, in which each works as an element of a set or stands out by contrast hot-cold, different gradation or luminosity. In this case, the space is treated as a vibrant atmosphere and a territory populated by a myriad of autonomous galactic bodies that co-exist. Finally, in the third panel, “Cosmic points–Reflexion” (Figure 3 right), I experimented various metalized backgrounds (ranging from aluminium, silver and copper) or warm and vibrant tones (magenta, yellow and oranges) where colours undergo certain chromatic changes, creating unforeseen spatial atmospheres and where the brightness is given essentially by contrast or by the vibration of certain colours or their differentiated degree of saturation.
Figure 3: Cosmic Points (2006/2007), mixed media on canvas, 200 x 200 cm each; left: Light; middle: Counterlight; right: Reflexion.
In 2008, I performed a series entitled "Spectral Studies" (Figure 4) in which I developed spectral ranges of some true stars, others invented, and the solar spectrum. At that stage I was essentially interested in the study of the illusory movement, because although the Cosmos is in perpetual motion, the apprehension that one has is that everything is stopped. In fact, some colours seem to move faster than others because of their dynamic characteristics. This effect can also be obtained by their different disposition on canvas, by the order of magnitude of the bodies themselves, etc. In this infinite game of possibilities everything can be subverted and that is what I try to do. A coloured point within another point of different colour highlights the colour that you want to highlight (if black or white) or works as a vibrating element (in the case of a secondary colour, for example). An extension of coloured dots in various shades or varied colours creates the impression of luminous continuity. The absence of shadows contradicts the notion of a classical illumination that can be given by the use of different colours. The light can also be manipulated by the use of colours, depending on its scale, intensity or uneven saturation. These phenomena are, however, not found in known images of the visible universe. The elaboration of an ink drop as a celestial object may create the suggestion that the other points are equally distant stars.
Figure 4: Spectral Studies (2008), acrylic on canvas, 50 x 75 cm each.
As everything that exists is comprised by dots (atoms, particles, planets, etc.) and it is thought that the infinitely great obeys to the same laws as the infinitely small, I also dared to explore the sub atomic world in the same way as the universe cosmic, allowing me to use various colours in metallic or fluorescent backgrounds. For example, yellow is brighter on black background than on a neutral surface. A larger point seems closer than a minor point. Hot colours approach and cold colours increase the distance. The movement can be suggested by displaying the colours in space. However, all of this can also be exactly the opposite, according to the surrounding context. This period was culminated by two large panels (7 meters long each), the "Expanded Galaxies" (Milky Way and Andromeda) in 2008/09.
In the next phase, the "NeutrinoPhaseOne" (Figure 5), followed the third panel of the "Cosmic Points" mentioned above. I abandoned the canvas for a totally rigid and smooth surface (PVC in aluminium). This allowed me to explore the perception of vacuum (or absence of atmosphere), a system in which the depth of the illusory space, the apparent movement and the light, could exist. The intensity of the colours, the variety of tones and the very characteristics of the pigments were altered accordingly.
Figure 5: NeutrinoPhaseOne (2010/11), mixed media on PVC, 100 x 100 cm each.
Then I felt the need to return to my usual passion of cataloguing utopia. For three or four years (2011/15), I painted almost two hundred drawings on millimetre paper, the "Nebular and Globular Hypothesis" (Figure 6). I used the grid as a tool of scientific accuracy and painted miniatures of an imagined future. There I explored different graphic effects, using caches and counter-caches, universes inside and outside other universes, auras, reflections, compositions based on optical illusion, eruptions of colour, and created the illusion of spaces demarcated at different distances. The white background of the paper, where the colours are highlighted, provided greater accuracy of the forms and guided the next phases of my evolution.
Figure 6: Nebular and Globular Hypothesis (2011/15), drawing on millimetre paper, 21 x 30 cm each.
DISCUSSION
More recently (2016/17), and after all the experiments mentioned above, I returned to the canvas and coloured backgrounds, where I created new and endless associative games, contrasts, chromaticism and different perceptions of colour, always creating the illusion of a three-dimensional space in the "NeutrinoPhaseTwo". How do colours work in fluorescent backgrounds or composites, i.e. celestial bodies on top of stars that cover the entire frame? Are they in backlight or can they exist autonomously in an effect that photography could not capture? An opaque body illuminated from behind can be presented as getting an invisible front light and losing its silhouette features? And can the colour of these bodies inhabit harmoniously with the coloured background without losing the illusion of greater proximity to the spectator? I also used bands of chromatic circles, in a game between what is seen in the picture and the chances of other ranges of colour of these same stars.
With the two new series, "NeutrinoPhaseThree" and "NeutrinoPhaseFour" I worked with chrome painting and new reflective materials, looking for the light that is at the basis of all colour as perceived by the human eye, in a different approach perhaps closer to spiritual meditation and iconic atmospheres. Finally, in the "New Galactic Charts", large paintings not shown here and which I will present in a forthcoming exhibition, I synthesise all my previous experiments, a mixture of the cosmic universe and the macrocosmos.
CONCLUSION
My paintings results from practicing error, correcting and making new errors, from attempts that harmonize or contrast in my always dissatisfied look over the world, using unlikely chromatic combinations or effects beforehand sought. I search for harmony that can be surprising but that is an essential element of the genesis of human creation. My own discovery as a creator. Utopia perhaps, but a good justification for a painter. What is the world? How to transmit it through colour and space in a virgin environment, without existential references and therefore almost symbolic? Despite all these years of searching for a different language but spontaneously natural, I feel that the more solutions I encounter the more doubts I face. To try is to find out. That is exactly what gives me the strength to go on.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank Bruno Brehm for taking the pictures of my paintings and Joana Magos Brehm for assisting with the translation and format of this text.
