Hot Blues Rooms
Critical Art Studies on Colour Theory
Short Video with Mixed Media, 2021
Artist Statement
Hot Blues Room investigates the interaction of coloured light within the built environment of a toaster to explore the properties of integrity and illusion in colour. It juxtaposes the logical, functional effects of coloured light, which can change the inherent colours of objects, against its perceptual and deceptive abilities to visualize new local colour. In relation to time and controlled space, ice melts into white toast that burns black, in sync with red and blue light sequences that parallel active hot and cool temperature. Lighting scenarios mimic sunbeams, signifying the passing of time, like the thirty minutes of raw footage condensed into four.
Inspirations were drawn from Josef Albers’, Interaction of Colour, and James Turrell’s Skyspace at MOMA PS1, Meeting, as Albers theorizes colour as a relative medium, and Turrrell harmonizes controlled interior light with natural sky. Hot Blues Room composes a score of various shadows, tints, and hues of warm and cool light to intensify or dull colour in relation to its surroundings. Red is objective and honest, it functions naturally in this space, while Blue is controlled, psychological. Additive blue light is reflected from the metallic oven to darken colour, symbolize cooling temperatures, and to disconnect time sequences. Blue also attaches emotion; it syncs with the hollow vocals of FKA Twigs, Cellophane, to contrast Red’s logical appeal. Hot Blues Room is, alas, a sensorial test of colour and light. It frames a delicate space with time, temperature, and light to reconcile colour for its optical and objective functions.
Music and Soundtrack Credits: "Cellophane" by FKA twigs. *This artwork is for private, non-commercial use only and is not to be distributed. Full credits for music and soundtrack to the original artist, FKA twigs.