We’re Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue is a collaborative project Polly Hollyoak and myself have been planning for a few months now. We knew we wanted to paint and installation together and formulated a plan – a game if you like, a set of constraints to follow, with which we would make our installation. We were given the rear gallery at Seventh ARI on Gertrude Street and when the day came, we got stuck into it.
Constraints
Three colours, primary – red, yellow and blue. And lighter and/or darker versions of those.One person was to start with one colour, and begin painting.
Then the next person would choose a different colour and respond to the previous iteration.
The first day, it flowed fairly easily. And we were excited about each next step. The only drawback that I felt, was a keen awareness of being watched while I was working. But it was coming together well. The second day was a more difficult job. We had by this time come to the third wall, however something wasn’t flowing. After a lot of talking, we realised it was because the paint wasn’t drying quick enough for the next person to paint overtop, greatly limiting our possible responses. It was such a cold day that the paint just wasn’t drying very well.
Red, yellow and blue really are scary colours to use. They are all strong and compete for attention. This was a complex palette to work with, especially on our first collaboration. It helped that we had a few different shades of each colour.
