All posts by Rosie Lesso

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…

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,…

Russian Romantic painter Ivan Aivazovsky was entranced by the wild, untameable energy of the sea, painting it in bruised blue and purple tones punctuated by white moonlight. ABYSS linen recalls the deepest tones in Aivazovsky’s brooding seascapes, a rich indigo that suggests tempestuous, brewing drama. In the face of nature’s sheer, destructive force Aivazovsky saw…

CORAL linen is a colour filled with heat and fire, burning with the raging intensity of a Spanish sunset. For the deeply passionate painter Joan Miro this red held great significance, both as a patriotic symbol for his native Spain and a potent carrier of raw, overflowing emotion that spills out from his canvases and…