A blurred and indistinct image with green, yellow, and black colors.

Failure of Reference

Close-up of a yellow flower with a dark center, blurry and out of focus.

Sample 004: brown, beige and black

A blurred image with warm colors including beige, brown, orange, and red, making it difficult to distinguish any specific objects.

Sample 003: brown, orange and black

Blurred colorful image with green, yellow, red, and blue hues.

Sample 002 grey, black and brown

The image is blurry with indistinct colors and shapes, predominantly featuring blue, yellow, black, and some beige areas.

Sample 005: orange and black

Blurred colorful image with shades of blue, black, brown, and yellow, making it indiscernible.

Sample 008: blue, orange, black and grey

Blurred colorful image with indistinct shapes and colors, primarily black, red, and beige.

Sample 001: purple, brown and orange

Blurred colorful image with a yellow object with a black spot in the center.

Sample 009 black and red

The word sample suggests something isolated for examination. The numbers suggest a system. The colour names suggest an answer.

But the answer cannot be verified.

Colour is usually encountered through the things that carry it: a red coat, a blue sky, a yellow wall. We learn to recognise and name colour as though those names describe something stable and objective. Yet seeing is not a neutral act. What one person sees as red may appear differently to another. Even when a colour seems obvious, the word attached to it is an agreement rather than proof.

The works do not resolve this uncertainty. They make it visible.

A photograph points towards something. A title names something. A colour appears to describe something. Each promises a connection between what is seen, what is said and what is real.

Here, that connection fails.

Failure of reference

The works begin as photographs, but very little remains that can be identified. A landscape might be there, or a building, a plant, a person, an object. The image suggests that something has been seen, but no longer provides enough information to determine what that something was. What remains are areas of colour, detached from the things they once described.

Photography is commonly understood as a form of reference: it points towards something that existed in front of the camera. These works retain the appearance of photographic evidence while withholding the information that would allow that evidence to be verified. They still appear to refer to something, but the thing they refer to has become inaccessible.

The titles introduce another system of reference. Each work is numbered and accompanied by a list of colours:

Sample 001: purple, brown and orange

Sample 002: grey, black and brown

Sample 003: brown, orange and black

Sample 007: orange and black

Installation shot at De Galerie Rotterdam