Yasuko Toyoshima Web Site | WORKS / ColorCompensation−1

Color Compensation-1 (2005-)

In a completely darkened room, I install a lighting system that alternately flashes red and green in one-second intervals. I then order 201 color cards according to their attributes of hue and tone and place them in a grid on the wall, thereby creating my personal color chart. Two video cameras, each set up to record a different light condition, continuously film the wall of color cards. On the right and left sides of each card, I then paint facsimiles of that particular color, based on the phenomenon of that color perceived under the changing light conditions. The labels on the paint containers identifying the colors are covered with masking tape, turning the process into an extreme exercise of ‘painting blind’ whereby the colors are determined solely by my perception, contaminated by the enforced light conditions. At no time during my work of gazing at the color cards, mixing the paints, and painting or adjusting each facsimile will the space, cards, and paints be visible under natural light. At no time during the production of this work will I leave the room so that the continuous color comparison and correction is exclusively done with a perception steeped in the dark and the flashing red and green lights. This is an attempt to construct a color system conditioned to fail to materialize outside of the environment I have established. Likewise, it is a constructed color system that could only be materialized through my perception and visual calculation under these conditions.