Light Vs Pigment.

In the mid 90's, when I started my degree in Industrial Design we use to share some subjects with other disciplines like graphic and fashion design. One of this subjects was called "The Colour Theories". I don't thing this has changed so much today - Still the need of explaining the origins and relationships between colours and Applied Arts - 

We all know that light could be coloured as well as paint but, do we know the way to create or mixing colours in light is different than mixing colours with pigments? One difference is that light emits colours while pigments absorb them. In another words: white light contains all colours and with the mecanism of lenses and filters we are able to separate them or isolate one. Colour mixing in this case is additive and their primary colours are red, green and blue. The result of adding all colours together in light terms will be white. 

Furthermore, with pigment colours the mixing is subtractive. Primary colours are cyan, magenta and yellow and the mix of all together will be black. When we see a wall painted in yellow it means that is reflecting yellow light and absorving the rest of the colours , and this is the reason why we can see it. 

There's a huge large amount of nice colour combinations using complementary colours and playing with his luminance and saturation. A nice study book full of colour combinations was made by Joseph Albers: "Interaction of Color". Small ed. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1971, rev. 1974. 

Nevertheless, I am going to share all the scientific matters that you can find in any dedicated post. What I really want to show you is the application of all these theories. 

In order to explain how to paint with light and how to paint with pigments I've choose some images corresponding with two different artists: Sandy Skoglund and James Turrell.

Sandy Skoglund (1946, Quincy (USA) - ) 

These two first images corresponding to Sandy Skoglund (Artist and photographer) works show the way the artist choose to paint with pigments the elements she choose in her photographs. Dramatic themes, replication painted elements with particular colours and their combination are her biggest main installation features. Please, take a while and see the small quantity of vivid colours used and the effect on the rod cells and cone cells of our retina by their combination and contrasts. I must say that is not the same living her intallations inside them, than in a pic on our computer because naturally it converts pigment colours into light colours. Sandy has evolved his technique, sometimes with more strong actions over the physical objects she uses, creating blurry worlds. The reality is suddenly transformed by the pigmentation into another different reality normally closed to the oniric language. These artwork is normally static, while the global impression looks dynamic.

Let's gonna take a look at the next pictures corresponding to James Turrell artworks:

James Turrell (1943, Pasadena, CA (USA) - )

What really surprised me was his ability of transforming spaces painting through the light. The same space/context transforms in something different, with the intrinsic factor of light of changing inmediately. This technique has been applied for different exhibitions in worldwide galleries and  museums like MOMA in NY (picture above), also in arquitecture collaborations in design centres  (PSA - ADN Design Centre in Vélizy) and another different situations. This is one of the most important facets of this artist. You can check online his Timeline Artwork and be sure you'lll be surprised. In the following images you'll see again his pictorical way of create mood-altering ambients. Technological progress has let this artists introduce LED devices  increasing the level of control of his installations. Time and tech plays a major role in this kind of artistic mouvements.

These contemporary artists approaches (J.Turrell and S.Skoglund) lie in transforming the reality by their own particular and different tools -one with the paint can and the other with contemporary light emitters. 

I have been particulary impressed by James Turrell, who started experimenting in this way, with the Light and Space Group in Los Angeles (CA) with Robert Irwin and Doug Wheeler, something that was out of the mind-set of the period . After their first artworks, they have become the starting point for current artists like Olafur Eliasson, Jim Campbell, and many others, each one with their own approaches. James Turrell received a BA in Pomona College in Perceptual Psycology in 1965. Then he finished mathematics, geology and astronomy and finally he received an MA degree in Art from Claremont Graduate School.


I will go back to the artists I mentioned before in future releases to show a wider vision for this fantastic Art phenomenon of the 20th and 21st Centuries that fascinates me.