colorscapes

In the “Colorscape” paintings, the same process is always applied: the colours from a photograph are ordered from light to dark within a grid of 16×16 squares. Because the light colours end up at the top of this mathematical, computer-controlled list, many of these works create the illusion of a horizon and an abstracted landscape. The colours are reproduced in oil paint. Every time Cole reverts to this process, however, a different concept is worked out. For the El Camino exhibition, he went to Finistère (France) to photograph a sunset in three directions, and then to Fisterra (Spain) to do the same. This resulted in two triptychs / altarpieces that depict the unknown from the mainland. In another series, by analogy with the Calais series by Marthe Wéry, he painted 17 paintings based on 17 snapshots of the sea taken from the pier in Calais. The dimensions were derived from those used by Wéry; both series were shown interchangeably in BPS22. Two paintings were hung on the scene of the baroque theatre of the Chimay castle, one in the first scene and another, slightly smaller, in the second. The closest depicted the front part of a landscape, the other the back part…