Thursday Salute to Originals: Color Coding
There is something strangely satisfying about order. A straightened office, a clean living room, or a well thought out workshop can create a sense of serenity and control. Maybe for designers it’s a clean grid of columns or a dead-on detail. We often think about order being established through the physical position of objects. By introducing color and other design elements, the whole tidiness game changes into an expressive art. Watch out professional organizers, color coding isn’t just for closets anymore!
Artist Emily Blincoe sets her scenes with deliberation, snapping square compositions that encapsulate a borderline-OCD level of organization. Her Arrangements series features staged images of clustered objects ranging from a bunch of peppers to industrial toys.
Through that frenzied level of organization, a simplistic element that emerges, creating a “zen” moment. (Is this personal insanity and need for control, or do you feel it too?) The objects sit within strict boundaries but fall into line according to a color gradient or ombre. At first glance, the blending of the entire composition is more important than its content… but there are secondary layers of organization as well.
This work speaks to the process of creation as much as the creation itself. Establishing order requires deciding on hierarchy – weighing the values of color, size, texture, shape, and form. In Blincoe’s material collages, color is usually bestowed with the utmost importance, as other elements play second fiddle in contributing to the piece’s interpretation.
This Thursday, we salute Emily Blincoe for manifesting an unwavering attention to detail with a compulsive flair. Not only do her images viscerally satisfy neurotic designers everywhere, but they beg for deeper consideration. How can overlaying spatial organization with color, form, and size create more intricate architecture?
Image credits: Emily Blincoe