Sketching is a risk- taking effort and one of faith because by their very nature, sketches bring our ideas to the forefront quickly and truthfully and often lead to inspiration. These pieces were my way of sketching for three months and exploring various media.
There is a place off the archipelago of Turks and Caicos where one can dive into water so blue that it is impossible to see where the color ends or starts. One is completely enveloped by a light blue space that is infinite in every direction. It becomes difficult to find the surface when coming up for air. At this moment beauty and anxiety fuse together and the relief is welcoming when one breaches the water. At the same time one longs to return to the silent weightless Big Blue where all our senses are wrapped in blue.
Many of us have a strong emotional reaction to color and this phenomenon has been of interest to me for the past several years. For this exhibition, I explored the color blue. What happens when one stares into various shades of blue? What are the thoughts and sounds that enter one’s mind with each color? What occurs when they are combined? This interest led me to work with Dr. Pedja Neskovic, and graph my brain’s visual and cognitive response to cerulean blue, cobalt blue and indigo blue. The results in the brain graphs for each color were very different.
The color blue can refer to melancholia as in “I have the blues.” I therefore tracked my thoughts every day for three months and tied a knot in a piece of cotton-braided string when I would have a “blue” thought.
My large drawings in this exhibition in which I used a variety of blues were created with two disparate emotions in mind as were the videos I created. The glass knots I made reflect our fragile emotions.
All of The Big Blue pieces, including the dance performance, encompass various states of mind. Infinite shades of blue are possible as are the infinite realms of the uncharted mind.