EXPO ‘Exploring Colour’ by Lina Peterson – online exhibitions at the Crafts Council (UK) 18 dec 2009 – 18 jun 2010

Exploring Colour by Lina Peterson : PINK !!

The first thing that strikes you about Lina Peterson’s work is her bold use of colour, from tangy primaries through to fresh fluorescents. The bright and brilliant ‘Dipped’ plastic collection of brooches, part of Peterson’s graduation showcase at the RCA in 2006, was a huge success and yet the colours emerged more by accident than design.

At this point, Peterson was more interested in ‘material qualities and combinations’ than anything else, but as she begins to use colour in a ‘more deliberate way,’ starting with a range of brooches produced for Collect in May 2009, the invitation to explore the theme seems particularly apt. ‘My colour choices have always been pretty arbitrary up until now,’ explains Peterson. ‘They’ve been quite intuitive as I really just went with what I felt worked, but I thought it would be interesting to look at colour in more detail.’

The exploration begins with a closer look at Peterson’s pieces in the Crafts Council Collection: Orange Necklace, 2008, and three Dipped Brooches, acquired in 2009. It ends with two entirely new pieces based on research into the colour pink, which she hopes will lead to a whole new body of work.

Click on the Exhibitions tab to see the Lina Peterson pieces held in the Crafts Council Collection along with the new pieces created specifically for this online showcase.

from Lina’ s blog:
« I decided to work with the colour pink for two reasons, partly because it’s a colour that has popped up in my work recently and secondly because of its interesting history. Whilst reading up on symbolism related to pink I discovered that its associations are much more varied than expected. Interesting facts about pink include cultural associations – it was originally a colour associated with boys and not until the 1940s that it became a ‘girly’ colour. Also of interest are the psychological effects certain shades of pink can have as well as the colour’s political associations. I read an interesting piece of writing about the symbolism of pink here: Cabinet Magazine
The thing I became most interested in investigating was the idea of a monochromatic piece of jewellery made out of many different materials. I saw two ways of achieving this. Firstly I wanted to paint different materials with the same colour of paint. The individual pieces would look different because of their material properties. Secondly by bringing materials together that were ‘naturally’ pink, I could create an intrinsically pink piece of jewellery. « 

See on-line exhibition at http://www.craftscouncil.org.uk/collection-and-exhibitions/exhibitions/online-exhibitions/view/exploration-of-colour-by-lina-peterson