Jeffrey Dell
Cake, 2011, 15 x 22", screenprint.
“I want to believe in a dynamics of color that comes before culture.”
Jeffrey Dell is an artist living and working in Texas (USA). His approach to color is experiential and his approach to printmaking embodies the reminder to himself that limits make choosing easier. Jeffrey’s screen printed work is both flat/dimensional and pleasure-seeking in essence. Currently he is working on a series of prints incorporating brushy, geometric patterns.
Are there specific associations towards color in your work?
Sometime in the late 1980's, I heard Siah Armajani do a public interview about his Irene Hixon Whitney Bridge at The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. I loved Armajani's work then and I continue to love it now.
There are two very specific colors he used on that bridge. When asked why, he briefly cited something in the writings of Thomas Jefferson that referenced those colors. Even as an undergraduate at the time, it struck me as a clumsy answer.
Color is experiential, visceral, and emotional. It's difficult to think it; limiting it to a text-based reference feels small. And yet, as humans, we can’t escape our own memories and associations that involve color. Color's power can bypass the conscious mind. Because of this, associations triggered can be swift, similar to how sound or smell can evoke reactions.
I do not generally want to draw on, or cultivate, specific historic or cultural references in my use of color. I dream of a chromatic realm free from such binds, even while I acknowledge that such a state is impossible. Bright reds activate pleasure in my mind in ways that I cannot explain. Are my associations based on my ancestors' search for edible berries, or my country's flag, by advertising, or other things? I'm sure the answer is all of the above, but I want to believe in a dynamics of color that comes before culture.
“Maybe the form could be described as a dance, and color is the sound I make while moving.”
The Dying of the Light, 2019, 34 x 23 inches, screenprint.
Earthlight, 2018, 34 x 23 inches, screenprint.
How does the printmaking process itself relate to how you work with color?
There are essentially three ways of mixing colors: physically stirring two inks together; layering semi-transparent colors on top of each other; and placing them side-by-side for optical mixing. Making prints is an efficient, rigorous way to do any of these three. It's no coincidence that the primary colors or red, yellow, and blue were corrected into magenta, yellow, and cyan via the printing industry.
I learned most of what I know about color from print. Painters might have an easier time with certain nuances -- it's just faster for making tiny adjustments. There are times I might adjust a particular color, but when I think of the labor and time required (making new film positives, burning more screens, etc…) it’s easy to accept it as is. But print remains a fantastic way to learn about color.
Making prints will make you a better painter. As an example, CMYK process, while hardly the medium for most artists, completely changed my understanding of color. It helped me to understand that color exists only in our minds. This is why color will never be absolutely fixed and definable, because it is itself a compromised translation of external phenomena.
In my work over the last six years, I've been captivated by how print can accommodate "glazes": multiple layers of very transparent, low saturation colors that can generate a luminous surface. On a level of physics, this is light waves bouncing off of multiple stacked layers, moving around between them. This is different from a flat, opaque layer. I am especially moved if I can get an effect that is both transparent and saturated.
“I’ve been captivated by how print can accommodate ‘glazes’: multiple layers of very transparent, low saturation colors that can generate a luminous surface. On a level of physics, this is light waves bouncing off of multiple stacked layers, moving around between them.”
How does color represent or support the mind space of your work?
I am afraid of words. I like thinking about colors as sound effects, because that is pre-language. To name it is to impose limits, forever-after bound to associations and meaning. In fact, I'm often the same about forms. I don't want either of them to be constrained by names. Maybe the form could be described as a dance, and color is the sound I make while moving. This does double duty: it defies our urge to classify and alludes to the kind of joy I seek.
There are obvious exceptions to the idea of names and associations. For years, I've returned to the form of cake as a motif, and this has a clear association of pleasure and appetite. I've even used the word, "cake," and colors that reference frosting, appetite, and celebration. But art can be contradictory.
On another contradictory note: even if color can be pre-language, I do collect as many names for specific colors as possible.
demo cake, 2018, 15 x 11 inches, screenprint.