Rainbow Brushes (2008)
Each Rainbow Must Contain the Chromatic Signature, it..., Magnus Müller Gallery, Berlin, Germany, 2008
Wooden paintbrushes with pig hair, acrylic paint | Variable
Rainbow Brushes (2007-08) consists of a series of thirteen and fifteen inch paintbrushes that have been made through an action the artist refers to as “Performative Pulls”. The colors found in a section of a rainbow that appears in an already existing painting in the history of European Art are first matched on paper with acrylic paint. For instance, the work entitled After Peter Paul Rubens, 1636, was made from the rainbow found in Ruben’s painting Rainbow Landscape, 1636-1638. The paper is laid flat on the ground and a brush is pulled through it, leaving its traces or afterimage on the bristles. The brush is then hung on the wall. According to the science of optics, a rainbow is a physical phenomenon made up of seven colors arranged in a specific order. However, painted rainbows from different periods in art history appear quite different as they express the varying cultural and experiential circumstances under which they were created. These same changing conditions are reflected in the construction of the mind of the artist. Therefore, the representation of each rainbow is the result of the projection of this mind upon the canvas, which acts as a screen illuminated by that particular condition of the mind. The installation of these brushes highlights these differences and expresses the history and cumulative affects of cultural history on the mind as represented through the optics of art history.