“Ultramarin Ultramarine Outremer” is the artist’s attempt to paint all portrayable colors, to systematically record all colors. For every picture an unadulterated pigment (oil paint) was used for the cloth to be painted, then lightened with a white and darkened with a black. The artist opted for the classic, current pigments which manifest a difference in color that is as fine and gradual as possible. The color gradients bordering on the cloth (gouache, acrylic) occur by chance—the result of the primary and secondary colors not yet used. A blue cloth thus encounters yellow, red, green, orange, brown …

“I seldom think about color. One could say I think of it as self-evident. Color theories bore me, I’m afraid. Sometimes I even take the color I have the most of and trust in my instinct to help me out of any trouble.” Gene Davis

The canvases, all of them in the same small format (39 x 25 cm), explore the same motif—a cloth draped over a table, hanging over an edge.

From pigment to AdobeRGB to CMYK to catalog.