Theory of Colours

Curated by Beata Geyer, ‘Theory of Colours’ exhibition presents new works by six artists, Beata Geyer, Linden Braye, Mark Ryan, Naomi Oliver, Susan Andrews and Tom Loveday who focus on colour and its conceptual potential as an integral component in their practice.

Shaping our everyday experience, colour underpins how we relate to the world. Our lives are saturated by colour, and yet we know surprisingly little about it despite that fact that the question ‘what is colour?’ has been asked as for quite a while now.

The title of the exhibition, borrowed from Goethe’s 1840s 'Zur Farbenlehre' is a provocation and a starting point for the conversations about colour, and a concept of ‘colour theory.’

"Every act of seeing leads to consideration, consideration to reflection, reflection to combination, and thus it may be said that in every attentive look on nature we already theorise." Goethe, 1840

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, a poet and philosopher presented his 'Theory of Colours' as a response to Newton’s findings on colour. Most unimpressed with a theory that neatly packaged all colour spectrum into a black and white ‘colour’ wheel divided into seven mystical sections, Goethe compared it to an “old castle built by a young architect”, suggesting that the Newtown’s theory impeded a free inquiry into the phenomena of colours.

Instead, Goethe’s approach focuses on colour observation and immersion
in elusive colour experiences, resulting in presenting the theory of how colours are perceived by humans. Goethe’s legacy and contribution to art and philosophy is understanding colour as lived experience, and as such colour being deeply embedded in everything that pertains to be human.

‘Theory of Colours’ exhibition brings into focus the complexity surrounding a discourse about colour and our attempts to theorise it. A futile attempt to answer ‘what is colour’, perhaps, but still nevertheless most enjoyable.

"But in order to guard against the possible abuse of this abstract view, in order that the practical deductions we look to should be really useful, we should theorise without forgetting that we are so doing, we should theorise with mental self-possession, and, to use a bold word, with irony" Goethe, 1840

Beata Geyer, 2022


All quotes from 'Goethe’s Theory of Colours' published by Lector House