3D Color Wave: Summer 2015-2016

 

 

This project was inspired from two sources: a folded newspaper art piece at a friend's house and a whole box of old National Geographic magazines.  At first, I thought it would be interesting to only have colored lines - changing the orientation of the folded paper in a asymetrical of pattern.  However, I started thinking about a light prism, the contrast between light and dark, what goes in and what comes out.

White light is made up of all the wavelengths of light, as seen on the left side of the piece.  Combining those same colors with paint however, you get black. In reality, light and dark aren't far apart from each other - they may be pitted as polar opposites, but they are connected by the same fundamental building blocks that we know as colors.

The construction of this piece was quite tedious. To increase the size of the folds, I wrapped pieces of the magazines around cut cardboard. The thickness of the carboard varied depending on what I had in the house, leading to some inconsistencies in the work. Additionally, holding all the strips together as I worked was a challenge.  During the process, I used pins pushed into the fiberboard work surface, but eventually I created a the final solid-wood frame to keep each strip as parallel and rigid as possible.  I had originally envisioned an epoxy coating that would harden the paper in place, but for budget I settled on multiple layers of enamel coating to hold it all together and protect paper.