Is it Tiffany or Robin's Egg blue?

When you say  Hermes orange, or Tiffany blue,  does Kapoor black come to mind? British artist Anish Kapoor has secured the exclusive right to use the high-tech color "Vantablack", a color developed for military purposes. The pigment is so dark that it absorbs 99.96 percent of light making anything coated with it nearly invisible. I heard that the former Soviet Union went to great lengths during the Cold War to discover the formula.


Kapoor is not the first artist to secure rights to a color.  Think Yves Klein. Did you know you are supposed to pay a licensing fee to the estate if you use that color (International Klein Blue)? And how would you ever know if you strayed into Yves Klein territory when for instance doing a painting of a swimming pool with a myriad of blues?

What do you think of an artist monopolizing a color? Should brand identity stand in the way of artistic expression? Will Kapoor aggressively pursue his rights and sue fellow artists?  Will you be arrested by painting with Kapoor Black?

And what if you are using it as a commentary on Kapoor, or a reference to the military, or the nature and presence of a painting with the absence of color? Shouldn't that all be covered under freedom of expression and merit legal protection?

Tom Sachs comes to mind with his use of safety orange. It informs our understanding of his work. I love that he's thought about orange.

I think we are at the beginning of a large conversation. What do you think pink?

COLOR. By Tom Sachs from Tom Sachs on Vimeo.

Pierrot Lunaire

I am finally gaining insight into my newest works in paper (The artist is always the last to know...).

As you know, they had the working title, Tropes but are clearly concurrent with Pierrot Lunaire by the Belgian writer, Albert Giraud.

Fables, tropes, and the absurd. Dreamlike, fractured, nocturnal. Stories that are told without telling coalesce into potent though uncertain relationships.

Within a theater of recurring figures and gestures, a disconcerted balance of undiscovered and ambiguous histories emerge as metatheatre — improvisation and invention, parody and burlesque a world of lunacy, deceit, disorder, and confusion.

In my Pierrot, man and animal trade body parts, morph into mists and smoke and touch each other in ambiguous spaces. With these tropes on the fabulous and fractured, all is possible.

Here's a preview:

Susan Shaw, A host of playful pranks

cotton, linen, trash pulp  2016

Susan Shaw, Linen spun of light

cotton, linen, trash pulp  2016

Susan Shaw, The fountain laughs in it's pool 

cotton, linen, wood, trash pulp  2016

New Tropes taking on a life of their own.

As you know I have been working on a series of Tropes at Dieu Donné Papermill...large works in handmade paper.  All painting done with pigmented pulp—cotton, linen and trash pulp.

Susan Shaw 2016  60" x 40" Trope 005 (green deer) cotton, linen and trash pulp







©susanshaw2016

Pulling Pulp

Catching up. I spent the month of September at the  Women's Studio Workshop. I had the paper studio residency all to myself and how great it was. WSW is an incredibly supportive place. Everyone is very encouraging no matter what you are trying to accomplish. Chris Petrone the studio manager and the interns were beyond great. Chris helped me wrestle with fibers I had never tried before. Tana the Artistic Director and co-founder got me using the vacuum press, a noisy novelty. The other artists in residence were also interesting. My apartment mate, artist Wei Jane Chir, was working on a book about organ harvesting. Interesting photos floating around when I got home at night... All of this helped me to create more than fifty works during my residency.  Add all that to the glorious fall weather and wow—you should try it yourself. Read more about it in this article.

Photos by Chelsea Campbell