Fluorescent colour lighter than white?
What is fluorence anyway, and is fluorescent colour lighter than white?
Donald D Hoffman defines fluorence as “white that is whiter than white, a super white that almost glows”. I don’t know how I got into painting with fluorescent colours. I think this painting in 2011 may have been my first foray. I have been almost unable to put them down since then. They have a unatural quality, as if rather than reflecting light they generate it. And they seem to affect the whites. Since starting out with the flourescent colours I have also been including more white in my work, mostly the white of the primed canvas. In the above painting I noticed during the process of making it that, in certain lights, the white takes on a blueish grey tinge.
I wanted the white to glow as a colour in this painting that also contains a band of flourescent red
…and in this one, the flourescent colours seem to out light (or maybe out bright) the white, so that it starts to look more towards grey
and perhaps in this drawing also
Hence my question, is flourescent colour lighter (brighter) than white?
Your question reminds me of an experience that I have when walking in the city, especially at early morning or dusk. There is a way that all the colors seem ‘natural’ and then the eye starts to pick up on the bits of ‘un-natural’ light, the stoplights and the florescent signs…suddenly they all pop out of the scene and they are all I can see, they even pop more than the white lights of cars or street-lamps…so I think for me the answer is yes, they can be brighter/lighter than white…but in your painting with the black/red/white/ochre bands the white rivals the florescent red in brightness. I also noticed that where the last band of red on the left and right side is not up against a white band, it loses its pop a bit.
morphodidius
May 11, 2012 at 12:32 pm
I have frequently worked with fluorescent orange–love it. For me it is about intensity of color impact (aka brightness).
mariekazalia
May 11, 2012 at 2:12 pm
I really like the first painting. The colours are fantastic! And I agree, the white takes on something different.
pointsthruprose
May 11, 2012 at 4:01 pm
in the immanent realm of living one relies upon the other. yet, at the last breaths of dying, one bears down on intransigent brightness of white, leaving behind the whirring of all that breathes. finally, in the very moment of death white merges with view.
J.A. Vas
May 12, 2012 at 2:05 pm
Thanks all for your comments.Yes Marie, it is the intensity that I am responding to I think. I am playing with combining more ‘natural’, non-fluorescent colours with them. And thanks for your feedback about the whites pointsthruprose, and J A Vas thanks for your reminder that it all so easily becomes memento mori!
Andy Parkinson
May 13, 2012 at 9:59 am