VISION: BLACK WHITE & RED

In a continuum of luminance from complete darkness to pure white, the first logical color frequencies are red and orange hues, and I am applying them in various transfer modes over a low-contrast, desaturated base image.

I'm interested in the visual perceptual biases with respect to color preferences and choices. The logical answer to the question "After white black and gray, what would be the next logical color?" I am presuming that the answer would be a unanimous--red. This has cultural implications as well, with a wide-range of affordances to the appearance of red, and what it may connote, e.g. life and death (when mixed with black) and love/affection (pink) when mixed with white, political ideology/repression, and so on.

B-W-R in Car Colors

In aerial views of parking lots one typically sees car colors that are some shade of black, shades of gray,silvers, and various shades of red. Shades of blue still exist but are less common. The gamut of car paint colors in the 1960s and 1970s was somewhat more varied, with bright yellows, greens and purples, but the range was still primarily the black, white and red shades.

Black, White Stripes and Red

TheWhite Stripes were hugely influenced by BWR.

Apparently Warhol was also involved with car painting. A special exhibit at the Warhol Museum in titled Warhol and Cars: American Icons features his illustrations for car advertisements, many using red.

"I picked arbitrarily the most difficult color that I could work with--and it was red, because red goes black very quickly."--Robert Rauschenberg

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Gazing at this very narrow band of frequencies creates interesting afterimage effects in the eyes, such that black or darker areas "burn" into red areas.

SPECTRUM GRADIENTS


Black-Red-Black


Black-Red-Black (2)


Black-White-Red


White-Black-Red

OTHER B-W-R ART

Achtung
11"x14" Gouache on Paper

Geometric art created using one symbol ! and black white and red.

Redimade
36"x24" Digital Giclee Print

Vectorized object using photographs of an actual object, in this case a cast iron shoe-shine Stand, painted red.

The Stand is the readymade, and this print is a derivation as a visual 'pun' as the stand is red in color.

VIDEO STUDIES

Possible video treatments using luminance applied to a silhouetted figure, moving in and out of a red halation, creating a boundary effect.