Hue[s]pace at ODETTA gallery, running through Oct 9th.
Hue[s]pace continues Ramsay’s investigation of color, location, and time. The installation, Hue, Place, Pace, One Year of Color, cascades 14 feet from the ceiling and undulates 23 feet across the floor, specifically designed for the gallery. It translates a year of color change in a specific location in nature into an abstract three-dimensional object.
The 14 artworks in the exhibition demonstrate Debra’s thinking on color. It being something to be borrowed/captured/found photographically then interpreted into a paint formula with the aid of a computer program, not harming or physically altering anything from its original condition. There is no intuitive color selection at play. This is painting in the digital realm. Her rigorous color system exploits an idea Josef Albers spoke of, the “…profound harmony in the immeasurable spectrum of color”.
The sources of these colors come from the natural environment, either a color that is surrounding, such as the sky, or a color from something miniscule, as a flower petal, that could easily be overlooked. Ramsay 's viewpoint is, "There’s no human design to nature, it’s true on its own terms, no egonot harming or physically altering anything from its original condition. I want to make work that feels bluntly true. Simple. The most simple it can get."
Time is evident in a variety of ways. The installation is segmented into colors from each of the four seasons. Several wall works (acrylic on ¾ inch thick slabs of clear plexiglass) have titles such as Lichen Memory…where something has been painted over, then removed…allowing the viewer to see what is no longer there. Time captured in an elusive way. The handling of the paint itself contributes a sense of time. Thin veils of color laid over a translucent support, light pushing through the backs of the panels, and light changing within the environment all contribute to the shifting qualities within each painting and suggesting time itself.