Art and immortality

28 September, 2021

One of the concerns I initially had with making ink was how the fugitive nature of natural colour would impact any art I made with it. I had read that using beetroot would eventually fade to nothing, with only the original paper colour remaining. If I was to use natural colour in my work, I needed to rethink my approach to art making, and it’s longevity.

The quest for immortality in art has rendered natural colours as ‘less than’ because they don’t fit into capitalisms ideals: natural colour can’t be controlled, mass-produced or duplicated.

Natural colour is a rebel.

We can easily buy colour from art shops, so there is no need to make it. We make it because experimenting is at the heart of what drives creative beings. Learning how things work, playing with spontaneity and relearning lost crafts is nourishing for our souls. Sadly, we may soon live in a world where society goes as far as removing the ability to make colour from us. Most likely by covering it in gardenless concrete apartments and shopping malls. So I strongly believe that reverting back to natural practices is important for maintaining our creative histories and connecting to the earth.

The quest for immortality can be exhausting, and perhaps it's also unnecessary. People pay large amounts of money for dinner and drinks at a restaurant - for an experience. Is something appreciated more if it is fleeting? The colour of a flower doesn’t last forever, so why do we expect the colour of ink to be eternal?

When thinking about immortality, I think of plastic. Humans designed an immortal substance, and yet we use it for single-use items like grocery bags and water bottles. Our species has not yet earned immortality.

I wonder if watching a once bright painting slowly fading, and shifting to soft greys or browns could be a moving experience that reminds us of our own mortality. Death is inevitable and necessary for life. I’m contemplating that if the colours fade in my artworks, they can then be buried, returning, and rejuvenating the earth, and in that instance, perhaps another artist is discovering the beauty of nature’s non-permanence and will create a new work to replace it.