Blue

Stratachrome Installation · 2012

An ethereal presence emerges through depth of colour.

Blue is almost imperceptible on entering the gallery. Its mist like presence emerges as the viewer walks towards it, gradually acquiring depth and chromatic intensity. What first seems scarcely there becomes an encounter with colour occupying space. Blue’s association with distance is made bodily: depth is discovered through the act of approaching. The triangular structure holds this ethereal field within a defined geometry. Its edges and angles establish a finite space, while blue suggests a depth that exceeds them. The work brings the measurable and the elusive into relation, giving a precise form the presence of atmosphere. This encounter resonates with the history of the monochrome, particularly Yves Klein’s use of blue to evoke the infinite and the immaterial. In Spriggs’ work, colour unfolds through the time of an encounter. The viewer’s approach changes what becomes visible, allowing its faint presence to disclose a depth of colour. Blue gives the monochrome an ethereal, spatial presence, held between the limits of its triangular structure and the expansiveness of the colour within it.