Chromatic Realms: Exploring the Impact of Colour Through Printmaking

Colour is a fascinating aspect of our visual experience, as it has both physical and psychological effects. The atomic world sees colour as vibration and chemical activation. Colour represents the quality and value of any chemical molecule that triggers the brain, which is why we experience emotion when we see it. The vibrations or wavelengths of primary colours are radical, elemental, and fixed.

As an artist, I became intrigued by the emotional aspect of colour and sought to explore it more deeply through my printmaking works. Printmaking provided a perfect medium for me to convey the abstract qualities of colour through texture and form. One of the things that I discovered in my exploration of colour was the effect of bright colours on our perception. Bright colours produce an afterimage, and a visual vibration can be caused by two bright colours arranged side by side. However, this effect can be decreased by interjecting bright colours with pastel or dark shades.

Light travels at an astonishing 186,000 miles per second, which means our eyes shift from one colour to the next without us noticing. Colours such as violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, and black move at 140,000 miles per second, making it difficult to recognize and analyze them. Our ocular receptors slow down time, allowing us to perceive these colours more fully.

Our retina receptors are light-sensitive cells used by the eye to perceive light. Cone cells respond to colour, whereas rod cells respond to brightness. Interestingly, one receptor responds to the colour green, another to the colour blue, and the third to the colour red. All of the colours that humans can perceive are produced by combining these three colours. Researchers have found that humans can discriminate between up to seven million different colours.

The sensitivity of photoreceptors varies, with blue receptors being the most sensitive and red receptors being the least sensitive. The capacity to see colour necessitates interaction between at least two types of photoreceptors. These three colours can then be mixed together to create any visible colour in the spectrum. Through my printmaking works, I aim to convey the emotional and physical impact of colour and how it affects our perception of the world around us. By bending and scratching the lino against the surfaces of my environment, I not only added texture to the prints but also embraced the reality of my surroundings, making the art more immersive and evocative.