In Close Proximity: Rafael Bustamante

The show presents the artist’s inquiry into color psychology through dynamic canvases that engulf the viewer with the movement of gradients and colors. Utilizing the color theory of communication and psychology, Rafael Bustamante depicts the emotional seascape with its inherent fluidity, deceptions, shades, and contrasts.
The psychological, subjective approach to color takes roots in Goethe’s investigation of color (Zur Farbenlehre, 1810). Goethe’s views on the physical nature of color, made in opposition to Newton’s theories about light and its spectrum, were dismissed by the scientific community (among other things, Goethe believed darkness to be more of a counterforce of light and not just the absence of it). However, the philosopher’s attention to the psychological and semantic properties of colors gained momentum in society, finding reflection in science, politics, and art. This momentum was significantly magnified by psychiatrist Carl Jung, who called the color “the mother tongue of the subconscious”. Based on the research of Eastern cultures, Jung connected colors and their occurrence in dreams to representations of qualities of consciousness: red was assigned by Jung to feeling, blue – to thinking, yellow – to intuition, while green signified sensation. While Jung’s Color Quaternity remained a useful analytical model, the latest research has empirically proven colors‘ capacity to influence emotions and behavior. Even more so, the influence of colors on emotions seems to be more universal than previously believed.
The works of Rafael Bustamante are based on an even more sophisticated theory of color psychology, where not basic colors but hues reflect and recall specific emotions through their interplay. Monochromatic lines follow each other like waves of emotions: from playful pink to bloody crimson and passionate red (SHADES OF RED, 2022). Blue lines of MOVING THROUGH FEELINGS, 2022) represent more than Jungian “thinking” quality of consciousness: alternating from the melancholic sapphire to fragile cyan and serene oceanic blue. Yet the seascape of emotions rarely holds calm waters, and some of the works of Rafael Bustamante present disturbed or mixed colors (NOISES 03, 2022). The centerpiece of the show merges the colors together in a pulsating color spectrum as if unveiling the ever-flowing mix of emotions: no feeling is final.