why blue

The gallery area at Dudley House consists of two rooms, one main room and one smaller one. It is my intention to have all the work in the second smaller room be one colour - a blue that is closest to Ultramarine Blue. I decided to do this as an indication of the mono-cultural view of the new immigrants of the colonial era and there are several reasons for my choice of hue.

Firstly this colour is one of the many variations of blue used in willow and other china patterns of the mid Victorian era which I'm considering with this work. The blue is domestically ubiquitous. 
Secondly, this blue is based on the stone lapiz lazuli which was once considered as valuable as gold - which reminds us that values change over time and across cultures.
And thirdly, this blue is often used as a colour to suggest purity, such as with images of the Virgin Mary in Renaissance painting. During the Victorian era women were expected to be morally pure. (See early post re the poem 'The Angel in the House'.)

The blue has become something I am increasingly enjoying working with. Before this project I would have assumed I would get bored with one colour but instead I am finding it continues to feed my interests. And so long as it motivates me I will continue to explore.

'Mrs Larritt in Upside-down Country' will run from Friday 16th to Sunday 25th November with and official launch with guest speaker Jo Porter (Co-Producer, Regional Centre for Culture 2018) on Saturday 17th November. 

​Image - stone lithograph with coloured pencil