All posts by Rosie Lesso

Jonas Wood finds beauty in the mundane, as crowded spaces spill over with junk, shelves are packed with potted plants and clashing prints compete for our attention. All this bristling energy is surrounded by soft grey light, allowing steely silence to descend upon his scenes, a nod, perhaps towards our need for stillness amidst the frenetic…

MARIGOLD linen’s rich, ochre yellow is flush with warm radiance, like a late summer sunset. American artist Keith Haring saw sunny optimism and the golden glow of human spirit in this colour, bleeding it into his freewheeling universe of jumping people, barking dogs and graphic slogans. Combining eye wateringly bright colours with cartoonish characters and…

Hovering somewhere between green, blue and soft grey, MEADOW linen has a mysterious ambiguity, like misty fog gathering over a salty sea. In French Impressionist Claude Monet’s hand this colour was transformed into flickering patches of cold, airy morning light or a smoggy, enveloping haze. The mutable, changeable nature of this colour reflected Monet’s fascination with…

RIM linen’s tawny, warm grey features heavily in French Cubist Georges Braque’s palette, as patches of fawn light are cast across dimly lit scenes, creating stillness and tranquillity. Though his early paintings were awash with Fauvist colour, it was Braque’s later, steely grey canvases that defined him as a true pioneer of early abstraction, one…

Moody, sombre and filled with suspense, the silvery blue tone in REED linen was entrancing for British painter Walter Richard Sickert, allowing him to convey scenes lit by a soft, diffused light. From the murky waters and metallic skies of Venice to delicate, intimate interiors, Sickert conveyed a spectrum of subjects with this colour throughout…

EUPHORBIA linen is delicate yet iridescent, with the sharp freshness of ice cold lemonade. American painter Richard Diebenkorn loved the way strands of this pale lemon could bring sunlight into his works, staining them with the colour of summer. Capturing the essence of time and place through light inflections was vital in Diebenkorn’s hugely varied…

MECCA ORANGE linen is backlit with scorching heat, recalling French Fauvist Andre Derain’s glowing, sun streaked landscapes. He was intoxicated with the golden light in the South of France, painting it with heightened colours that seem to buzz with the electrifying energy of life. Looking back on the frenetic brushstrokes and dazzling colours of Fauvism…

Deep, dark and indulgent, DULSE linen’s blackberry stained hue can invoke both the theatrical grandeur of royalty and the hidden depths of primordial desire. The colour has great significance for British sculptor Anish Kapoor, whose deliciously sensuous sculptures tap in to red’s cultural history, while enlivening a primitive essence within the human body, as writer Stella Paul points out,…

SANGUINE linen shares an earthy, enveloping warmth with the great French Post-Impressionist Paul Cezanne, who infused his paintings with this glorious, sun glazed terracotta. Famously writing “the truth is in nature”, Cezanne obsessively copied the colour and light in the South of France onto canvas, capturing golden sunlight with soft sandy and earthy hues as…