Secret Lives of Color

 

"Indian Yellow" was created on Photoshop. 

The color inspiring this piece is Indian yellow.

This piece drew inspiration from the book "Secret Lives of Color." The color Indian yellow dates back to the 1700's where it was produced using limited food intake and cow urine. The controversy with animal abuse and this color eventually led it to be banned from production altogether.  This is where I found the inspiration for this piece. I wanted to merge the physical color with historical facts while also representing animal cruelty in the present day. To do this, I found a stock image of an Indian cow and began rasterizing the image, along with manipulating the color. I wanted to include both the ear tag and rope halter, which I thought embodied the past and present of animal cruelty. 

"Peppered Moth" 

The color behind this piece is "Charcoal". The materials used are willow charcoal sticks and grey paper. 

The peppered moth was inspired by a story told from the book "Secret Lives of Color" where the author, Kassia St. Clair, tells a story about the adaptation process exemplified by the peppered moth as a indirect causation between the production of charcoal. When charcoal was first being produced around the 19th century, it was reported that there where less sightings of the white and grey moth and a increase in  sighting from a new dark moth. This was than reported to be the Peppered Moth adapting to its new "sooty" environment making them harder for predators to see. In my piece I wanted to create the moth that was able to adapt to survive in its climate from the substance that fueled this adaptation.