Colorblind People Are Stupid

Paint Swatches on Plexi-glass and acrylic

2005-2008

Some of my earliest memories are of things that I cannot see.

There has always been a connection between color and loss for me because of a genetic inability to see certain colors. Ten percent of men share this problem. The loss of the image is what is daunting because it invokes a loss of memory and an inability to hold on to relationships. I began this work by breaking down and then breaking apart color-blind tests. I use paint swatches because the absurdity of the paint names touches on the idea of color definition. These names have no meaning to me.

Much of the subject matter within these pieces is based on photographs (my own and appropriated) and when hung, the shadow mimics an image that I am able to see the same as the viewer as it is monochrome. The images are themselves memories of difficult personal relationships because they are not what I would expect to find in a color test and they play into my fears of loss. The nature of the swatches on plexiglass is that they will degrade over time, falling off of and altering the image much like how we explore our own thoughts of time past.