The Performance of Colour: Time, Material, Time, Language

Abstract

This practice-led thesis considers what it is to imagine colour at the limits of language as art practice. The main project of this research, The Vivisector Oracle: A Colour System for the Discovery of Truth for Artists and Others in Times of Uncertainty (2013-ongoing) began as a list of all the colours in Patrick White’s novel The Vivisector and expanded into a work with several iterations: a set of collages using paint swatches, installation, objects, and a series of one-on-one performances. I also produced a significant body of drawings which together propose that the relationship between colour, time and space allow a view of colour as performative. Through my consistently speculative studio processes I have aimed to conduct research that is both material and philosophical into the meanings of colour. This thesis’ contribution to contemporary visual practice is an expanded idea of colour as performative, and as a way of thinking that includes language and systems but simultaneously reaches beyond them. Show more