COLOUR BLIND

A collection of works, balanced and composed through the exclusive use of blue, yellow and greenish-greys, so that each painting is equally as pleasing to the eye in both colour blind persons (strong protan) and normal sighted persons.

The Inspiration behind artworks for colour blind people:

My brother is colour blind. So this year I decided that for every painting I create, I will create a second version that is balanced and composed for people with strong protan colour blindness, such as my brother. Why?

Well, compared to birds, we are colour blind. Birds have possibly the most advanced visual system of any vertebrate. For example, we have 3 kinds of colour cone cells in our retinas. Birds have four. On top of that, in each of a bird’s cone cells is a drop of coloured oil that enhances their ability to detect differences between similar colours. And on top of that, some species of birds are sensitive to the ultraviolet end of the spectrum, which we cannot see at all.

So compared to birds our vision is impaired. And that really annoys me! But it's also given me a very small insight into what my brother's life is like. And I'm keen to explore that idea some more. Can I recreate beauty with a very restricted colour palette? Can I exaggerate the restricted way we see a bird's colours compared to how they see each other? How far can I push that before it no longer reads as a bird?

My paintings for colour blind people aren't exact protan colour-blindness copies of the originals. Rather, I have balanced and enhanced each individual composition using the blue and yellow colours available to me, to make these paintings aesthetically pleasing to both normal vision and colour blind persons.

Anne