’s triptych I Am So Sorry in which pulsating expanses of red, green and blue lend subtly yet sharply differing tones to the words of the title. The large canvases of Odili Donald Odita with their shard-like forms are acute, angular meditations on the interplay of colours and the associative and emotive responses their subtle interactions evoke in us. In the final gallery the focus is on works that continue to activate debates around the politics of representation and the political significance of colour. Perhaps the most iconic images from South Africa’s years of transition and debates around identity are Berni Searle’s Colour Me series in which she covered her face with spices, and this series is to be seen along new works by Mawande Ka Zenzile whose paintings incorporate natural pigment and earth as he literally seeks to ground contested imagery around colonialism and hegemonies of power. The works of Walid Raad and The Atlas Group explore the psychological impact of the conflicts that have ravaged Lebanon over four decades; in Appendix XVII: Plates 22-257 colour itself is counted amongst the victims of warfare; brutalized into submission, the essence of some colours diminishes, while others die off. In the abstractions of Serge Alain Nitegeka black has a density and weight always in opposition to the sharp inflation of white, and his ‘black subject’ appears within a body that is both formal and political. In Simon Gush’s Red, the artist considers the strike actions and debates at the Mercedes Benz plant in East London, South Africa, in 1990 when the workers manufactured a red car as a gift for Nelson Mandela. Gush presents four wall-mounted Mercedes doors, painted in different reds, along with a black-and-white documentary of the events. The various shades of red prompt us to ask ‘which red is the truest?’ Memory and mythology grind down action and context, and colour is central to the re-telling of the tale. Vermilion is a red with a feeling of sharpness, like glowing steel which can be cooled by water. Vermilion is quenched by blue, for it can support no mixture with a cold colour. The glow of red is within itself. For this reason it is a colour more beloved than yellow. - Wassily Kandinsky, ‘Concerning the Spiritual in Art’ Chroma opens on Thursday 27 November 2014, from 6 to 8pm.

Deborah Poynton : Picnic

DEBORAH POYNTON: SCENES OF A ROMANTIC NATURE

CHROMA