Rainbow Room: Solo Exhibition — CRYSTAL TRANQUILINO

The Rainbow Room

5’ x 7’

oil on canvas

2019

as part of the solo exhibition, Rainbow Room

SOLD

Artist statement on the exhibition:

Ironically in Rainbow Room ― my latest series of oil-on-canvas works, I base my compositions within a room I painted entirely in white, from the walls down to the furniture, leaving little to no traces of color. In the actual paintings however, vivid pops of color are represented as thick opaque liquid, reminiscent of paint, dripping down the colorless objects.

This decision is inspired by an intriguing thought experiment in philosophy called "Mary's Room", also known as the Knowledge Argument.

In this thought experiment by philosopher Frank Jackson, a (hypothetical) woman named Mary lives her entire life inside a room void of color. Because of her fascination with this element she has never had the pleasure of experiencing before, she devoted years studying and learning about color, eventually becoming an expert in the field without ever seeing a single hue. Everything that needs to be known about any color, she knows like the back of her hand. One uneventful day, a door suddenly opens out to the world where color exists. Mary steps outside of her monochromatic room and for the first time, experiences seeing color with her own eyes.

Frank Jackson’s thought experiment makes us think, did the experience of seeing colors, change or alter the information that which Mary was already aware of? Does personal experience add an irreplaceable aspect of understanding that no amount of information can replicate?

My series of paintings in Rainbow Room is not a direct storytelling of Mary’s Room, but rather my personal reflection on it. The works revolve around themes of curiosity, isolation, and experience (or lack thereof) of certain aspects of my own life that I leave for the viewer to interpret. In Rainbow Room, I play around with color in an unfamiliar way: covering everything in white to represent its absence, then pouring the color back over everything, in a feeble attempt to replicate its existence.

- Crystal Tranquilino