Boni Cairncross, Colour Archive (Oaxaca), 2020, natural pigments on seedy silk, dimensions variable.
Boni Cairncross, Colour Archive (Oaxaca), 2020, natural pigments on seedy silk (detail), dimensions variable.
Colour Archive (Oaxaca) approaches colour as a material, as a process, and as an element to explore within a durational art practice. The colours were made during a month-long residency that Boni undertook in Oaxaca, Mexico (in July, 2019), using a colour extraction process to produce powder pigments from natural sources, such as barks, leaves, flowers, nut peels and insects. On returning to Australia, these pigments were transformed into paints, and became the basis of a practical exploration of colour and cloth, where processes of painting, pleating, unfolding and re-pleating cloth where used to explore the tipping points between contemporary textile art and painting.