The Open Window Society

“And now came this Isabel with that red smear for a mouth…”

The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov was a gift from a good friend - the inscription reads, “…the best Russian synæsthete for Jamie and Jacqui…”. I’d somehow never read Nabokov before, and I chose this book to use for this piece as a good excuse to correct that.

I flipped to the page my magical musical process determined, and was floored to find such a comically colour-evocative sentence. I almost didn’t use it, thinking it would be a bit obvious (& therefore difficult), but decided that it was worth pursuing… Later that night I read Wingstroke, the short story that contains the line and the whole thing came together. Naked City’s Grand Guignol soundtracking lent an even more ominous and quietly violent aspect, perfectly twinning the vibe of the story.

This quickly became one of the more expressive pieces so far in the STP series. The dominant reds and blues really took over, not just due to their inherent visual potency, but from the power given them by the words themselves. The words Isabel, red smear & mouth all containing a good proportion of reds & blues, loom large compositionally as well as conceptually.

Below is the letter/colour breakdown – each square corresponds with one of the letters in the phrase (for example: A=blue; N=brown; D=brown &c.). In the final art I try to represent the effect that I perceive from the combination of letters. The initial letter of each word having a pronounced sway over the rest, the secondary colours become hazy echoes.

Originally posted on it’s all gone potatoes.