Colin oder die innere Farbe
This contemporary painting is not intended to represent external reality. Rather, it is an invitation to perceive the appearance of Colin (the personification of color)—those fleeting spots, streaks, and afterimages that lie on the eyelid—after being dazzled by looking suddenly into the light and closing your eyes. These colors cannot be named or objectively represented; they are an inner color. The painting invites you to recognize how vision turns inward.
The composition appears as a vibrant field of overlapping traces. Warm ochre, yellow, and red tones meet cool blue and gray layers. Drops, splashes, and hasty gestures seem not to have been placed but to have occurred — just as inner color appearances cannot be controlled. These spots are not signs, but remnants of seeing—echoes of light on the retina.
The title, „Colin or the Inner Color,“ opens up a poetic space. Colin can be interpreted as a name, a character, a bird, or something alive—or as a sound that appears and disappears. The longer you look at the color fields, the more fantastical parrots with winding tail feathers or other animals begin to emerge. They are not really there and yet they are not arbitrary. The image allows for freedom in perception: each viewer sees something different.
This is precisely where the inner core lies. What becomes visible is the color each person perceives differently, simply due to the unique nature of their retinas, pupils, and irises, as well as their vision history. No two people ever see the same thing, even if they can discuss it. From an early age, we agree on names — „blue,“ „yellow,“ „red“ — without ever checking exactly which colors and structures are meant.
This image makes this paradox tangible: communication about color is possible. We see together, but never the same thing.
This is precisely where the freedom and indissoluble mystery of vision lie.
„Colin or the Inner Color“ does not show us what we see; rather, it shows us that seeing is an inner, deeply personal process — a place between light and memory, between the eye and imagination.
What we now see is not just the image.
It is our inner color.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version).