The HSA Gallery, under the curatorial direction of Adrienne Elise Tarver, Director of Art & Design at the Harlem School of the Arts, launches the New Year with an exciting exhibition, “Color Codes: Translating Color” that tackles the theme of translation, and features the works of four electrifying young artists: Kellie Romany, Lauren Bierly, Daniel Johnson and Carlos Torres Machado.
The work of these four artists forces an “examination of how the collaboration between the eye and the brain, translates light, resulting in a rainbow of hues we name and categorize. Apples are red, the sky is blue and grass is green–and though we happily label the color of these objects, our individual experiences of these colors vary from that of our neighbor. Definitions of colors are the result of interpreting and agreeing on what we assume to be a universal experience–but assumptions are dangerous and have led to revelations ranging from surprising to destructive,” says Adrienne.
Each artist in this exhibition brings a distinctive twist to the theme, pushing the conversation in different directions, but all emanating from the same point.
Scrutinizing the skin-color categorizing chromatic scale created by Austrian ethnographer, Felix Von Luschan, painter, Kellie Romany, creates visceral, yet abstract bodily representations.
Daniel Johnson, employs his background in photography to dissect the chromatic scale of skin, but instead of looking to the past, he looks to current modes of documenting skin tone.
South American artist, Carlos Torres Machado, draws from his international background to look at color and value on a global scale. Using money as the backdrop to understand value, in his “Data Center” series, he removes the usual signs and symbols of money.
Thinking about the brain, where color originates, Lauren Bierly uses her experience having synaesthesia, a condition where the brain mixes sensory experiences, to translate text to the colors that appear to her as she reads and more recently to translate her memory of a particular place into a palette of colors.
The exhibition goes up on January 13 and it is on view through February 21. HSA will host an Opening Reception on January 18 (6 pm – 9 pm), and an Artist Panel Discussion on January 20 (5 pm). These events will take place at the HSA Gallery, 645 Saint Nicholas Avenue, and both are FREE to the public. To RSVP visit hsanyc.org.
