Rebecca Baumann

Rebecca Baumann

IMA at Ksubi

05 February–18 March 201205 Feb–18 Mar 2012

With thousands of cards—in six different shades of blue—attached to a grid of ninety-six flip-clock mechanisms, Rebecca Baumann’s Automated Monochrome constantly recomposes itself. The Perth artist’s flickering colour fields may be motor-driven, but the effect is like falling leaves, evoking the random beauty of nature. Baumann writes: ‘The work explores the relationship between colour and emotion and was informed by my research into psychology, colour theory, and art history. Blue is an evocative colour, which conjures up images of sea and sky, yet is linked with sadness. Each clock remains autonomous, keeping its own time, out of sync with the others. This results in constant, apparently random change across the field, suggesting the flux in both our inner emotions and the outside world. In providing each subsequent viewer with a unique experience, it also highlights our subjective experience of colour.’ Automated Monochrome was created for last year’s Primavera exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.