Colorless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously

Installation at University Galleries, Illinois State University Various artworks are placed in relation to a green wall photo credit for installation images: Jade Nguyen

Colorless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously is a rotating group of artworks placed against an intense green-yellow hued painted wall and table. The paint color matches the pigment color Permanent Green Light as closely as possible. I invited the gallery staff to move the works around and to replace some works with others that are waiting in gallery storage, so the work changed several times during the exhibition.

This particular green is one I associate with a quintessential “plantness”, kind of like the green that everything turns in spring when new leaves and shoots emerge. It is also the “G” in RGB- the color that disappears in green screen video. It is a color that makes everything possible but is often regarded as a mere background.

The artworks that are placed against this color relate to the color, even if by dancing around it. They include structures, shapes, and patterns derived from plant forms and written language.  I am splicing these references together into what I can best describe as a chameleonlike, shape-based abstraction; I am inviting the viewer to explore the syntax and grammar of its construction.