July 28 - Gary Brewer

Blue

including: 

Zeina Baltagi, Kelly Berg, Gary Brewer, Srijon Chowdhury, Mark Dutcher, Rebecca Farr, Bryan Ida, David Lloyd, Aline Mare, Andy Moses, Diane Nebolon Silver.

Kamikaze exhibit at PØST, Friday July 28^th opening 7-10 PM

The word for blue does not appear in either the Iliad or the Odyssey, descriptions like the "wine dark sea" and the 'bronze sky' have perplexed scholars for centuries; did the Greeks not 'see' blue? There have been claims that most ancient languages do not have a word for blue, although we know that there is an ancient Hebrew word for blue and that the Egyptian's created a blue color in 2500 BC.

In our eyes there are cones and rods that are sensitive to specific colors, it turns out that the blue-light cones are the least sensitive, blue was often seen and referred to in language as 'darkness' or 'black', blues late arrival as a color in language is in part due to biological reasons.

There is also the idea that until a thing is named it does not "exist", which is a stretch, however seeing through the clarifying lens of analysis and articulation it seems that a thing becomes clearer, we see more with the cues of description- turquoise, cobalt, ultramarine.

Rayleigh Scattering is my favorite mystery; sunlight refraction through the molecules of our atmosphere are more effective on the shorter wavelengths (blue) of the color spectrum, hence the blueness of the sky as well as the blue of the sea. Blue eyes, are also caused by this scattering. Melanin is what gives eyes their color, eyes without melanin are blue, if the melanin is yellow our eyes are green, the first color wheel appears to be our eyes themselves!

In the 13th Century blue was still a largely unacknowledged color in Western European thought. In the color hierarchy, by way of the church, there was red as the most noble, then black and white. Yellow and green came in afterwards in importance, without a mention of blue.

During this time the use of blue in stained glass was changing this view. Indeed their was a battle of sorts between theologians as to the nature of color; was color matter or light? These camps were the chromophiles, lovers of color who saw it as light, therefore, immaterial and of the nature of spirit and god. Then there was the chromophobes who saw color as matter, therefore a disdainful part the material world - corruptible and encouraging attachment to the physical world, this veil of tears.

The chromophiles won the day and blue became associated with a spiritual, transcendent beauty. It made its way into finer fabrics and clothing as indigo replaced woad as the dying agent, and deeper, richer blues became possible. Its nobility and association with the a spiritual quality made it surpass red in importance, which had been the noble color since the time of the Greeks and Romans.

I have selected a group of artists, friends whose work I admire and asked them to include a blue piece for the exhibit “Blue” to articulate through the lens of many different creative minds their feeling for and expression of this mysterious and loveliest of colors.

Artists in the exhibit; Zeina Baltagi, Kelly Berg, Gary Brewer, Srijon Chowdhury, Mark Dutcher, Rebecca Farr,  Bryan Ida, David Lloyd, Aline Mare, Andy Moses, Diane Silver.