MY JOURNEY INTO THE COLOR
by
Laura Ferretti
I
feel
the
color,
I
love
them
so
my
painting
is
a
journey
into
the
color.
For
twenty
years
I
have
been
moving
along
and
changing
my
relationship
with
them.
I
began
using
flat
colors
painted
on
small
areas
shading
off
into
the
distance.
Paintings
took
shape
and
thickness trough the juxtaposition of monochromatic, but brighter or darker, areas (Marsh plants).
Going
on,
the
touch
of
my
brush
became
thicker
and
more
expressive.
It
looked
more
intense
and
direct
thanks
to
the
first
strokes
of
spatula that crossed, sure, the flat ground.
Quickly
spatula
became
protagonist:
it
is
my
preferred
tool,
both
for
enlarged
areas
(Maremma),
and
for
rough
and
complex
ones
(Under
a
blue
sky:
geraniums
and
Joy
in
sinking
),
and
for
monochromatic
and
detailed
paintings
which
spatula
various
directions
gives shape and three-dimensionality (Alive water).
As
to
colors
as
a
medium,
too,
my
evolution
was
long.
I
used
everything:
pastels,
sprays,
acrylic,
enamels
but,
at
the
end,
just
oil
colors
survived.
They
are
ductile,
pliant,
and
silky.
They
are
alive
under
my
spatula.
And
painting
becomes
a
vital
moment
because
it
needs
resolution
and
lightness
of
touch,
because
you
have
to
let
colors
mix
up
or
to
force
them
to
remain
themselves.
My
secret
is:
a spatula and few oil colors. Only five colors to give rise to all the colors of the world. Sometimes I add a bit of gold.
Colors
have
a
lot
of
feelings,
maybe
all
the
feelings
of
life.
Sometimes
life
is
very
rich
and
then
paintings
became
more
intense
and
polychrome
(Spring
redundancies).
Sometimes
a
feeling,
a
mood
overcomes
and
paintings
become
monochromatic
(Symphony
of
yellow
,
Moonlight
on
the
hills
,
Peace
amid
the
fir
trees).
Sometimes
a
color
prevails,
like
the
crushing
strength
of
the
yellow-life
in
Sunflowers
come
out
of
darkness.
The
rhythmical,
unforeseeable
moving
of
waves,
the
winking
of
stars
in
the
sky,
the
throbbing
of
the
wind
crossing
through
the
wood.
Quite
astonished,
we
let
ourselves
carried
away
by
the
spectacular
and
multiform
magnificence
of
the
creation.
In
a
small
piece
of
meadow
we
find
out
myriads
of
flowers.
They
are
small,
modest,
dispersed,
sometimes
unknown.
But
beautiful
too.
A
gift.
A
Gift
that
gives
rise
to
joyful
gratitude.
And
then,
my
palette-knife
“plays”on
canvas
with
yellow
and
blue.
From
it
come
out
worlds
wrapped
in
a
magical
green-blue
light.
On
them
some
coloured
corollas
stand
out.
A
fragment
comes
out
from gold, breaking it, and remembers us everything is Gift (The Gift: red roses).
But
the
color
I
felt
and
played
with
at
the
most
is
black.
On
‘94
I
painted
a
canvas
with
acrylic
black
color
and,
on
this
flat,
I
painted
flowers
(Moon
glade)
or
landscapes.
Later,
on
four
black
canvases,
I
left
black
zones
shrinking
more
and
more
until
they
disappeared.
This
black
was
emblematic
of
negative
moments
(death
is
the
greatest
one)
that
arrive
into
our
lifetime
and
break
it
(Crossing
the
black
1,
2,
3,
4
).
This
black
shrinks
if
the
will
accepts
it
and,
at
the
same
time,
consents
to
win
it
keeping
life-colors
apart from black, but, if black wins, everything turns into gray.
Later
black
wasn’t
so
fatally
black
and
became
a
mixture
of
yellow,
red
and
blue.
The
new
black,
alive
mixture,
is
spread
and
moved
by
the
spatula
and
illuminated
by
tiny
drops
of
gold.
This
black
is
the
ground,
the
undetermined
time.
Its
indistinct
rolling
by
is
sacred,
as
life.
And
seasons
come
up
from
this
black
ground:
orange
and
blue
for
summer
(Orange
flowers,
blue
shades),
yellow
and
violet
for
autumn
(Autumn
in
yellow
and
violet),
colored
whites
for
winter
(Improbable
snowfall)
and
red
and
green
for
spring
(As
red sorceries).
The cyclic arising of seasons is a leitmotiv in my painting because I feel, in this cycling way, the power to exorcise the same death.
We
all
feel
time
rolling
by
and
we
would
like
to
catch
a
flying
moment
and
make
it
eternal.
It
is
the
time
of
the
ephemeral
flowers,
of
the passing clouds (Fidget and serenity). It is the time of sunset (Just one moment).
Lately
I
painted
another
time.
It
is
a
time
enchanting
my
mind
before
my
heart,
a
time
unfamiliar
to
watches,
a
time
that
gives
dimension
to
space.
This
time
becomes
a
view
of
sunflowers
materializing
themselves
out
of
the
golden-
black
of
the
indistinct
time.
The flowers are throbbing with the delight of life that is arising from the abysses of vacuum (Sunflowers arising).
The
black,
mixture
of
yellow,
red
and
blue,
has
another
meaning.
This
black
contains
all
the
colors
of
the
world,
but
they
are
mixed
together,
entirely.
They
missed
their
personality.
There
is
a
painting,
Joy-colors
from
the
heart
of
black,
that
shows
the
joy
of
the
colors
free
from
the
black
prison.
They
run
out
from
the
mixcture,
appear
bright
happy
and
show
their
unique
personality
(Joy-colors
from the heart of black).
Lately
my
expressive
feeling
induces
me
to
imbue
with
emotions
that
make
poetic
my
landscapes
moving
in
nuances
or
evocatively
lost
in
the
mist.
Contours
disappear,
shapers
turn
into
allusions,
secret
atmospheres
alluding
with
marks
that
don’t
tell.
A
new
spiritually appears, timid, through hiding and rarefied charm of colors (Toward to the sky).