Colour is a universal element of human experience, yet our perceptions of it are profoundly
personal. Each individual’s brain processes colour signals uniquely, leading to distinct emotional and transcendent responses, thus making colour a deeply subjective phenomenon.
Cultural contexts further shape our interactions with colour. Across cultures colour holds symbolic, emotional and spiritual significance, reflecting everything from religious beliefs to social hierarchies. For instance, while white signifies purity in some cultures, in others it is associated with mourning. These cultural distinctions influence how individuals interpret and engage with colour in daily life and artistic expressions.
In art, colour has been central to conveying meaning and eliciting emotion throughout history. The Colour Field movement of the 1950s exemplified this by emphasising large expanses of unbroken colour to create immersive experiences. Emerging in the postwar period, the movement rejected figuration and gestural abstraction in favour of fields of pure colour. Artists like Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman sought to transcend representational imagery, using colour to evoke profound emotional responses and contemplative states. Their legacy continues to resonate, inspiring contemporary artists to explore boundaries of colour, surface and perception.
Taking its cue from the Colour Field movement, Colour presents the work of a group of artists who are interested in Colour and exploring its possibilities, while bringing their own contemporary perspectives. Free of form, gesture or any specific meaning, the works in this exhibition are an exploration of colour activation, more in key with the spontaneity found in nature and the subsequent optical experience provoked in the viewer. The artists will explore how colour can envelop, provoke and communicate through diverse mediums and techniques including weaving, dripping, pouring, soaking, staining, spraying and more.
The exhibition serves as a reminder that while colour is a shared aspect of human experience, the ways we perceive and are affected by it are as varied as individuals themselves.
Curated by Flora Hesketh and Omar Mazhar, Colour is the sixth in a series of thematic exhibitions produced with Tristan Hoare gallery, and will include works by Markus Amm, Sussy Cazalet, Helen Frankenthaler, Vipeksha Gupta, Howard Hodgkin, Jeff Macmillan, Ptolemy Mann, Alev Siesbye & William Turnbull among others.