What’s so special about this design? It’s only six colored rectangles on a white field… or is it?
I created this piece as part of a series of Naz-centric artwork, and despite its simple appearance, there is careful consideration behind every step of the process.
I like creating pieces inspired by various elements of Nazareth College; not only is it a way to portray the beauty of the school itself, but it is also a way of projecting the creativity and artistic mindset that I’ve been able to develop here. Art is the deepest way I am able to communicate the value and type of education I’ve been able to receive at Naz.
For this project, I traveled around campus to six of the main buildings where I’ve had my classes over the years: George Hall, Golisano Academic Center (GAC), Peckham Hall, Smyth Hall, Lorette Wilmot Library, and of course, the Arts Center. Because of Nazareth’s commitment to a diverse liberal arts core, new students are guaranteed to have classes in at least several of these buildings.
I took between eighteen and twenty-four photographs at each location. The photos captured all sorts of subject matter: hallways, doors, rugs, curtains, railings, etc. My primary goal was to obtain a good sampling of the colors used in each building.
I took 124 photos in all then used a computer to calculate the average color of each shot. I then took these colors and mixed them together using image processing software. There were almost 1 billion pixels (990,793,728, to be precise) across the full set of photographs. That is almost 1 billion dots of color, refined down to only six.
This is all technical way of saying I took the all the photographs, and distilled them down into nothing more than one colour per building, therefore capturing the purest essence of my trip through each building.
I then filled six rectangles with these colors, and placed them so that they match the locations of the real buildings as seen on the overhead campus map, further reinforcing the link between the colors and their respective buildings.
The result is an ultra-distilled rendering of the Nazareth campus. I think an art piece that pulls inspiration from historical art movements, visual design, color science, and mathematics is an excellent metaphor for a liberal arts college that also provides a wide range of professional-track programs.
Thank you for following along!