Harald Arnkil
Exploring Colour in Contemporary Art
Epistemic Boundaries and Artistic Practices
100531
This thesis is the result of exploring contemporary artists’
approaches to colour and comparing those approaches with notions of
colour in colour philosophy, philosophy of art and artistic colour
theories. How do contemporary artists use colour in their works and
artistic actions? What governs or guides their choice of colours? What
is the relation of colour theories to contemporary art praxis?
The
research is in six parts. Part 1, Nine conversations, presents
interviews that I have made with nine contemporary artists, Kristi
Kongi, Jussi Goman, Vesa-Pekka Rannikko, Inka Kivalo, Lois Swirnoff,
Nathalie Miebach, Douglas Breault, Ann Veronica Janssens and David
Batchelor, about their ways of using colour in their art. Part 2,
Epistemology of colour, is an overview of current ontology and
epistemology of colour. Part 3, Philosophies about colour in art, is a
discussion of texts about colour in art by the French philosophers Mikel
Dufrenne, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Gilles Deleuze, Jean-François Lyotard
and Michel Henry. Part 4, Guidelines, rules and theories for artists, is
a review of recent texts and theories about colour which have been
written specifically for artists by artists and art pedagogues. Part 5,
Contemporary colours, takes a look at approaches, methods and
applications of colour by contemporary artists, beginning with examples
from artists of the groups Gutai and Nouveau réalisme and ending with
present-day examples. The thesis ends in Part 6 with final conclusions
and a discussion of unanswered questions and some further thoughts.