Psychological and Physiological Effects of Colour:

Hello! So here is some of what I have on this subject,

Scientific research underpinning colours effects on people Extensive research has been undertaken to investigate both the psychological and physiological affects colour can have on a person. Over the last 100 years this field of research has expanded enormously and this section will provide an overview of this advancing knowledge: firstly by looking at the starting point of research, when the idea of colour and its effect on the body were first being investigated, before moving forwards chronologically to the modern day. Early research into this topic looked into the effect of colours on people’s moods and emotional state. For example Hevner (1935) found that various colours were perceived differently by participants, with the colour red tending to be seen as ‘happy’, whilst blue was seen by participants as a ‘serene’ and ‘dignified’ colour. In a later study carried out by Lewinski (1938) it was observed that by changing the lighting or illumination in various painted rooms the 50 participants reported different effects. It was found that the yellow and red rooms were described as "most unpleasant" with the green and blue being said to be "most pleasant." Later still, experiments by Goldstein (1942) found that red was ‘disagreeable’, ‘upsetting’, ‘exciting’ and ‘imposing’ compared to green that was found to be both ‘soothing’ and ‘agreeable’. Yellow and red in conjunction with each other where found to have an expansive effect (increasing the external world) while blue and green had the opposite effect. As these experiments demonstrate, colours impact the moods of the viewer, who then tend to project those perceptions onto the colours themselves. 6 There was however what seemed to be a move away from scientific research into colour and its effects on people after these studies were carried out. It has been suggested that to a large extent Dr John Ott and his controversial hypothesis on the subject sparked much debate, and as a result this particular subject came back into vogue some twenty years after the work outlined above. Ott himself is known in the art industry for his time lapse photography and his work in carrying out a number of studies into the effects of colour on people during the 1950s and beyond (Ott, 1958). Ott’s work looked at great detail into different theories behind colour’s effects on viewers. He had varied findings, though nothing proven to be statistically significant, throughout his different lines of studies (Ott, 1958). More recently, studies have been carried out that have demonstrated statistically significant results when participants were asked to look at specific colours. In these studies it was found that when focusing on blue compared to pink (different ends of the light spectrum) pink elicited a reduction in strength compared to blue (Pellegrini & Schauss, 1980; Pellegrini, Schauss & Birk, 1980). This research lead to the suggestion that colour could be used to help people become less aggressive and reduce violent outbreaks due to the ‘tranquillizing’ effect the colour was said to have. To test this hypothesis, an experiment was carried out that trialled the use of painting a block of American federal holding cells in prisons pink. The idea was to reduce the number of violent outbursts and aggressive behaviours. The findings of this study carried out by Pellegrini et al (1981)were inconclusive and no significant difference was found. However, looking at a trend of violent outbreaks across the year in the participating 7 prisoners it was found for the first month, there were the least outbreaks compared to the rest of the year. Month on month the number of outbreaks increased until back to a normal level, which stayed consistent for the rest of the trialled year. These results, though not statistically significant, point to further work for investigators, as it would be consistent with this data to suggest that, whilst pink is indeed able to reduce emotional arousal, extended exposure may lead the viewer to habituate to their surroundings.

Ganzfeld

Breathing Light, truly sums up Turrell's art, a perfect title for a work of art that allows you to do just that, to experience colour in a way in which it has never been done before. This work is much more than just the viewer looking at it; instead, with this work you become so entirely immersed in the colour that you feel as though it's in the air, you can see, feel, taste and breath the colour. The immersion takes the viewer to a place, when standing in the installation,where they are faced with what seems like infinite light and colour. The room is designed to appear seamless, as though there are no walls and your brain begins to attempt to work out where the colour and light is coming from - this is part of the magic of the work and truly realises the Ganzfeld Effect.  

The ganzfeld effect (from German for “complete field”) or perceptual deprivation, is a phenomenon of perception caused by exposure to an unstructured, uniform stimulation field. The effect is the result of the brain amplifying neural noise in order to look for the missing visual signals.

Here you see people carrying out their own versions of the ganzfeld experiment, without having to build a massive large scale room installation! By filling the ears with the sound of white noise and using a cut in half ping-pong ball taped over the eyes, you then shine the light across your face once comfortable. 

Painting wall panels

Hello!! 

(Did you miss me?!)

It has been an extremely busy year for me! Getting my work finished for degree show, then starting a new job... and subsequently deciding to return back to Duncan of Jordanstone to do my Masters in Fine Art starting September 2016! 

I have been terrible at updating my blog, because of this I have so many photos of my degree show work throughout the year, these photos are urging to been seen so I am going to be uploading them in somewhat of a chronological order first, then I shall explain what I've been up to since degree show! 

Painted mannequin in front of wall panels.

I fully primed the MDF boards with a white primer.

Above you can see right at the bottom of the picture my little steps as the panels were too tall for me to paint standing. 

I free hand painted the entire boards using acrylic paints to achieve the vibrancy I desired. 

Positioning part of a sculpture in front of the painted panel to see the contrast. 

I used a much larger pattern for the walls using less intricate detail than I put into the sculptures, in order to create different focal points for the eyes. 

Here you can see the almost finished wall panels, but fully white floor panels, I chose to wait until the week we had to install our work to paint the floor (which was a lot of added pressure). I chose to do this because I wanted to lay down the floor first, and then paint the pattern directly onto the floor to create an even larger pattern. 

This was when I was given access to my degree show space and first leaned my panels up against the walls, I was starting to see how my vision was coming together... and how much work I still had to do! 

I will be updating again soon as I have many more photos to share!! :) 

If you would like to see more of my work, don't forget to like my Facebook page, and follow me on my other social medias - find all links at the top. 

Alexzandria

Generator exhibition

Hello! 

I am months away from my degree show and will be updating very soon on how I am getting on with that, but I wanted to make a quick post about the fact I am currently showing some work at the Generator projects gallery in Dundee. The show will run from the 7th of February until the 1st of March 2015. 

Here are some photos from the opening night of the show! 

I feel like there was quite an eclectic mix of style and types of work including surrealist paintings on canvas, sculpture and performance art.This made for an interesting show that managed to keep your attention at every turn.

Feel free to pop along and have a look around if you are in the area! 

See bellow a link to the Generator projects website -

  http://generatorprojects.co.uk/

If you would like to read more about the artwork I have on show here is a direct link to my blog post about it -

 http://alexzandriaart.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/as-part-of-exchanging-resources-project.html

If you would like to see more of my work, don't forget to like my Facebook page, and follow me on my other social medias - find all links at the top. 

Alexzandria

Painting My Mannequin

Hello! 

At my desk in the studio

 Update! which will be mainly shown through photos as I think they are reasonably self explanatory. After priming my mannequin I then began to paint it, which is a very long process as I use a small fine paint brush in order to achieve the amount of intricacy I wish for. 

Arm

I finished painting both arms and then moved onto painting the torso of the mannequin 

Finished arm

I started to paint the torso

I took a few photos of the mannequin in front of a wall I had painted to see what effect I would get with the pattern on pattern. 

Front of the torso

Back of the torso

This is the arms and torso assembled and almost finished in my studio space. 

mannequin plus my sketchbook

The back of the torso

The front of the torso

My aim is to use the mannequins as part of a sculpture. I plan on distorting the figures and began doing a series of quick sketches to work out different ideas for the forms to take. I want to deform the shape of the body somehow. 

Here are a couple of the quick sketches. 

A few more images of the mannequin. 

My next step is to finish painting the full mannequin, and then begin experimenting with distorting the figure.

If you would like to see more of my work, don't forget to like my Facebook page, and follow me on my other social medias - find all links at the top.

Alexzandria