MARTA VEINBERGA visual artist

TALEA & COLORAMA
nail polishes over screen print on plywood (82 x 143 cm) and a row of nail polishes (~ 8 x 90 x 4 cm)
2017

Talea & Colorama is painted with old nail polishes on a screen printed, white pattern of a panel house. It took only about a week to collect a full color spectrum of nail polishes through donations - obviously, every woman has some of them at home. Just like the almost-empty jars of wall paint in the cupboard, which will supposedly serve for the next repairing.

The name Colorama is borrowed from a well-known nail polish brand and, in the title, it stands for the material of the work.

Talea comes from the term talea & color in Medieval isorythmic music, and points to the way this work has been build up. Originally the term describes a principle, where rhythmic structures and harmonic structures repeat periodically, but do not overlay precisely in time, thus hiding the construction from the listener. I’ve applied this principle in my work associatively, as follows: the rhythm (talea) is represented by 8 printed boards, whereas the 'melody' (color) is created by the different tones of nail polishes. While color shapes are derived from the underlying rhythmic pattern, the tones vary by their own rules, thus dictating the overall impression.