Color and Consciousness:
Research and Painted Process of Inundate, Intumesce, Hermetic, and Luminiferous
In the fall of 2020, one year after I completed my undergraduate painting thesis, I wrote my honors thesis about this painted body of work. In this project, I organize both my research on color and self-consciousness and my painted process to supplement the overall goal of communicating my inner experience. Throughout my undergraduate career, I have grappled with understanding my own disjointed mindscape and conveying it through my paintings. I braided together the different elements of water, fabric, color, and life to visually communicate the ineffable. Color and self-consciousness, and the link between the two, are major concepts behind my work. I focus on color, a visual phenomenon, and self-consciousness, a metaphysical phenomenon, because both share a varied and indefinable nature, and everyone experiences the two differently. Through research, I found that both color and self-consciousness are co-dependent with language, and that an expanded vocabulary enhances our perception of the two phenomena. With Inundate, Intumesce, Hermetic, and Luminiferous, I aimed to supplant written language with visual language in this co-dependent relationship by creating hyper-saturated, figurative paintings that allow for the viewer to expand their self-consciousness alongside their understanding of color. Alongside explaining these concepts, I delve into the decision-making process and painterly concerns that I grappled with while painting this series.