Yves Klein knew some things!

What Yves Klein says about colour really resonates with me . . .

“For me, each nuance of a color is in some way an individual, a being who is not only from the same race as the base color, but who definitely possesses a distinct character and personal soul.… Nuances can be gentle, evil, violent, majestic, vulgar, calm, etc. In sum, each nuance of each color is definitely a "presence," a living being, an active force which is born and dies after having lived a sort of drama of the life of colors. Color is sensibility in material form, matter in its primordial state."  Yves Klein

When I a paint, it does feel like the painting takes on a life of its own and once complete - the character and energy it exudes can change the way a space feels.  

I also appreciate Klein’s many thoughts about blue being special . . .

“Blue has no dimensions, it is beyond dimensions, whereas the other colours are not… …all colours arouse specific associative ideas, psychologically material or tangible, while blue suggests at most the sea and sky, and they, after all, are in actual, visible nature what is most abstract . . . we can never touch blue of sea or sky so it is as beguiling, it is the great beyond.  Just experience it and enjoy it and open your eyes to the great blue beyond”.

I am aware of blue being this ‘great beyond’ as it does feel infinite and as an artist that is so exciting; knowing that I will never tire of my journeys through and in paint!

Why Blue?

Why do I  use blue?  Perhaps it can be explained by psychologists or the late artist Yves Klein, I don’t know. I do know though that I am drawn to it, almost magnetised by it. It feels infinite and open, peaceful, tranquil.  It reminds me of a particular time when I was scuba diving; we were all looking at the coral wall and the wonderful sea life living on it but something told me to turn around….to look into ‘the blue’ - there was nothing but blue but then…..a second later ….a Manta Ray ‘flew’ in from the blue, her grace and beauty made me cry!  

Of all the colors, blue is the most liked by both men and women. It is no surprise then, that many artists—Louise Bourgeois, Yves Klein, and Wassily Kandinsky among them—have expressed a preference for it. According to psychologists, the popularity of the hue may take root in our evolutionary development. In the hunting-and-gathering days, those drawn to positive things—like, say, clear skies and clean water—were more likely to survive, and, over time, this preference for the color blue may have become hard-wired.

Yet, scientifically speaking, the sky and the oceans aren’t really blue—or at least not in the same way the soil is brown or leaves are green. This posed a big problem for most of art history. You can’t take the blue of the sky, grind it up with a mortar and pestle, then throw it on a canvas. Unlike certain reds, browns, and yellows, blue pigment isn’t quite as easily made.