Vancouver is also called Raincouver: clouds cover everything in cold grey. Different from the gray of the cement in Buenos Aires, a pressure cooker with 16 million bubbles that talk and curse non-stop;
Different from the gray of the paint used to cover up graffiti in Madrid. The shades never match, building up layers of “abstract vandalism”;
Used to the warmth of noise and people, the grays of Vancouver seemed anonymous and distant. Facing them up so they don’t depress me, I wondered how to paint them. What color is the rain, the snow, the twilight?
The thing was not to open the color wheel on my computer and choose one, nor to buy a tube of “twilight gray” paint. The thing was to inquire into how-many-lumps-of-which-colors-to-knead in order to hide the sun. Alchemy.
Making a color is only one part of the magic, the other is to paint something to see how it gets along with others colors. My mind warned me: -“The world of pigments is huge, and creating your magical world consumes a lot of energy. Don’t ask me to do both at the same time”. So I told my magical creatures to take a nap, and I started painting things that already exist.
I painted over and over, learning to let time pass by when I get frustrated, but always come back and finish. To try again months later and see how colors are more comfortable with eachother.
There are strong colors, like red & green, that as designer I’d say they don’t go together cause your eyes would hurt. But in pigments, they are powerful beings running towards each other (the audience thinks “OOOOH it will be an intense explosion when they crash!”). And when this happens (building suspense and tons of popcorn) the result is a soft gray. They are so strong they neutralize eachother. The audience is puzzled (some ask for a refund, others are fascinated like me).
Now I suspect those flavourless grays I see, hide life and color within them, they are just too mixed to tell them apart.
Mauro started cooking Asian dishes, and our kitchen was filled with new textures. When trying to paint them, I saw how the color transmits the flavor – an interesting subject to explore, hm
There’s also great grays in films. “The vast of night” has an almost monochrome night climate, which I painted as soon as I finished watching it. (If you like science fiction, I recommend it to you)
I thought of painting Mama Cora, a classic argentinian character. I attempted to try something different, and put animal heads on her. I didn’t like it and my mind said “I told you, one thing at a time.” But before surrendering, I worked on the mood: The sunset with that light that filters through old glass and curtains, tinting everything with “memories’ yellow ”. And the other, colder, in a small kitchen poorly lit, typical from old houses in Buenos Aires.
*This article first appeared in my newsletter: 07/02/2020 – Animalito’s Stories: Beyond Gray
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