CHROMOPHOBIA
"… Chromophobia manifests itself in the many and varied attempts to purge colour from culture, to devalue colour, to diminish its significance, to deny its complexity"*
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Core to their practice is thee element of color, which over time has tended to be treated as secondary, superficial, primitive and even dangerous. In Western culture, color was often associated with the notion of primitive and instinctive, that is, one that can express the provocative or even the vulgar. At the same time, in the opposite of the perception that color sets as something “revolutionary grotesque”, there is the habit of treating color as a “foreign body”, of secondary importance, which comes to “make up” the work of art, in order to beautify it and therefore making it unworthy of any serious involvement with it.
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In modern society, color often deviates from the artistic norms of the time and is excluded from the higher expressive values ​​of Western culture. This is because qualitatively color may be treated as belonging to a “discounted” culture that does not feed the highest concerns of the Mind and the higher values ​​of the western world. This is a prejudice from which the modern age does not seem to have managed to get rid of. Such thoughts are usually cultivated by reasoning familiar to all of us, such as that of “commercial art”. Today, this term appears inextricably linked to the “color” of a work, which the richer it is incorporated by the artist, the more “decorative” or “superficial” it is treated by the viewer.
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ACHT! (in German it means CAUTION!) through their painting want to motivate the viewer to reconsider the image, to discover its codes and to challenge the stereotypical perception that exists about color. Taking a step away from their personal artistic style and obsession, they use color rewardingly, trying to redefine its use with their own collective touch. In times when individualism, self-criticism and loneliness prevail, a new groupness is proposed, provoking the imagination.
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The exhibition “Chromophobia” at Nitra Gallery, is the first exhibition of the ACHT! Group, created by three artists and friends during the quarantine. The name came from the first letters of Amfissa, Chios, Thessaloniki which are the hometowns of the artists. The indirect reference to the COBRA group (Copenhagen, Brussels, Amsterdam), wants to comment on the marginalized role of Greece as a small provincial art scene in European and International events.
Starting with the use of saturated colors as well as the stimuli that result from the screen culture, ACHT! raise the question of whether computer technology has penetrated one of the most traditional branches of Art, Painting. Having grown up alongside with the rapidly evolving digital technology, its assimilation becomes evident on the canvas. In practice they use both the screen as a ‘model of observation’ and the tools and effects commonly found in basic digital painting programs. The impact of the digital age is evident in their compositions and gestures, as well as in the resulting painting qualities. Through discussion and a willingness to explore with materials and forms, they try to tackle quarantine isolation in the post-COVID era.
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* David Batchelor, excerpt from Chromophobia, London: Reaktion, 2000, p. 22-23.