Ekstrakt

Title Extract

Idéa  

Extract
A Color Nomenclature

“Even our anxiety to obtain definite names for definite colors is completely overshadowed by the stronger wish to understand the secret of their harmonious relationship.”
F. Schuyler Matthews
from Vanderpoel: Color Problems

In the art project Extract, we work on “extracting” shades of color from a location. This means that we blend specific color tones found on the nearby plants, roots, insects, stones, soil, and decomposed plant parts at a chosen location.
In Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours (1814)*, each color tone is precisely related to a part of a plant, a bird, a mineral, for example, the white color of the herring gull’s breast feather or the white color of sea buckthorn flowers.
The color tones in Extract are similarly derived from specific vegetation and other sources, where we zoom in on details and work on blending precise shades. The precision in this process is based on the immediate perception of color. When zoomed in, more and more variations are revealed. For instance, the surface of a bladder campion flower clearly shifts between light violet and green in detail.

The observed color tones are painted on square wooden blocks, slightly varying in size, around 2.5×15-20×15-20 cm, with the source and month indicated on the back: “Jackdaw’s Foot October,” “Bush Vetch July,” “Cinquefoil June,” etc.
During six pop-up exhibition events, the color tones are placed on the ground at the same location where they were collected, appearing as an addition, an extract of colors, a concentrate of the place, a sort of clumsy pixel painting, where color tones are drawn from the life, growth, and soil of the location through the seasons and weather changes.
One could argue that plants have a survival strategy. This strategy can rely on the radiance of color, where, for example, the hue of a flower’s petals has a special attraction for specific insects. Other strategies may concern how the plant disperses its seeds. The biodiversity crisis has, among other things, sharpened attention on the distribution and diversity of plants.
The focus in Extract is to explore the power of colors among each other. Experiments with how color tones can create unique spaces and atmospheres, partly through their ability to enhance or tone down each other. Botany and observations of the chromatic life of plants will form the basis for an artistic investigation.
Extract is a chromatically oriented color experiment and, at the same time, a tribute to the diversity of species and their ability to thrive in unexpected places.

To keep track of Extract’s observations, we make notes for all found species and color tones. In addition, we upload photos and species identifications to the iNaturalist.org website as a supplement to the notes. See more here: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/about – A useful tool where Extract’s observations become part of a larger context.
Not far from Extract’s demo site, in the area behind Godsbanen, botanists in 2020 found a surprisingly large number of plant species. (https://aarch.dk/vi-vil-bevare-godsbanens-vilde-arter/)

The color blocks will contain shades from vegetation and soil collected throughout the year, autumn – winter – spring – summer. We will work on the project from autumn 2023 to autumn 2024. During this period, we will hold pop-up events at selected locations. Initially, we focus on Brabrandstien and the area behind Godsbanen. Afterward, we will expand our radius and discover other places in Aarhus where flora has been able to flourish. One of these places will be Aarhus River. Here, we will extract color tones from the riverbank and, of course, from the water. The wooden blocks will float on the river.
For the first demo version of Extract, we have chosen a small strip of vegetation located between the skateboard park and the archery area. More locations will be added as the project progresses.
For botanical studies and the final verification of the notes related to each color tone, we have collaborated with biology students at AU, Sara Bjerrum.
A small pilot project has been unfolding since 2021 on Fur Island in Limfjorden. The location, a heath and coastal meadow, has significantly different characteristics in terms of color tones in soil and fauna.

**Artist Book Extract**
Extract is a site-specific work. A painting that grows out of the place where it unfolds. When enough material has been collected, we will collaborate with the artist Maria Bruun to publish an artist book where the color project is presented graphically. Artist Book Extract has the following working titles:

EXTRACT
– A Guide

EXTRACT
– An Instruction Manual

EXTRACT
– Listening Colors Out

The book elevates the art project from the site-specific to a broader dissemination. Through notes, photos of locations, vegetation and color tones, and color combinations, the art project’s material and method are passed on to curious readers who can go out and experiment with color studies and meditative sensory experiences of a place.
The French author Georges Perec’s sociology turns its gaze to the small things. In his programmatic text “Approaches to What?” (1973), he describes his famous theory about the pursuit of the “infra-ordinary,” all that is so common that we don’t notice it: the opposite of train accidents, plane crashes, and other such events that trigger breaking news alerts in online newspapers. “What really happens, what we live, what we do each day, the rest, everything else, where is it?” Perec asks. “What happens every day, what repeats itself every day, the mundane, the everyday, the obvious, the common, the ordinary, the infra-ordinary, background noise, the familiar, how do you account for that, how do you question it, how do you describe it?”

**Exhibition**
In the Mellemrummet at Godsbanen, in the autumn of 2024, we will combine a presentation of the Artist Book Extract with a display of materials from the project.

The work of blending precise color tones is a logical extension of my (AMP) previous practice. In many years of working with painting, experiments with the interactions of colors, the light in color, character, the extent of color, etc., have played a dominant role.

Participants in Extract:
Anne-Marie Pedersen, artist, Aarhus
Maria Bruun, artist and graphic designer, Copenhagen
Selma Krag, student, artistic assistant, Aarhus
Sara Bjerrum, biology student, AU
Interested audience

*Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours is a book of named color samples compiled by Abraham Gottlob Werner and subsequently modified by Patrick Syme. The book, published in 1814, was used by Charles Darwin in his scientific observations.