Extra Spectral

(back to Curating)

This exhibit, from April 2023, was hosted by the Durham Art Guild, an important facet of the community here in the Triangle (here’s a nice reel that did at the time). It was my first curatorial opportunity.

The show titled is a reference to extra-spectral colors, which cannot be evoked with a single wavelength of light, only by a combination of wavelengths. From the technical challenge of re-creating color to the ultra-personal choice of which hues to include to the fact that, as Josef Albers noted, we can never even see color as it physically is, making it the “most relative medium in art,” the relationship of the Artist to color is as complex as possible.

This exhibit highlighted several NC-based Artists that, on the surface, use colors that are “extra” (which is where their commonality ends) to evoke their intent through a combination of this color with forms and imagery as well as the concepts embedded in color’s many identities. Artists Jane Cheek, Jerstin Crosby, Zach Storm, Tonya Solley Thornton and Leif Zikade all require color to play a primary role in their work and their relationship to an audience.