"Shades of Whites" A Group Exhibition

White is achromatic (having no hue). It is the colour of fresh snow, chalk and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on television and computer screens is created by a mixture of red, blue and green light.

In ancient Egypt and ancient Rome, priestesses wore white as a symbol of purity, and Romans wore a white toga as a symbol of citizenship. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, a white unicorn symbolised chastity, and a white lamb sacrifice and purity. It was the royal colour of the kings of France, and of the monarchist movement that opposed the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War(1917–1922). Greek and Roman temples were faced with white marble, and beginning in the 18th century, with the advent of neoclassical architecture, white became the most common colour of new churches, capitols and other government buildings, especially in the United States.

It was also widely used in 20th-century modern architecture as a symbol of modernity and simplicity.

According to surveys in Europe and the United States, white is the colour most often associated with perfection, the good, honesty, cleanliness, the beginning, the new, neutrality, and exactitude. White is an important colour for almost all world religions. The Pope, has worn white since 1566, as a symbol of purity and sacrifice. In Islam, and in the Shinto religion of Japan, it is worn by pilgrims. In Western cultures and in Japan, white is the most common colour for wedding dresses, symbolising purity and virginity. In many Asian cultures, white is also the colour of mourning. Source: Wikipedia; The Free Encyclopaedia: 10 April 2010.

David Poole has used the colour white and the monochromatic tones of white, with the collaboration of various artists to create a visual grid system of shaded symbology. The artists were invited to use any medium to create their interpretation of "Shades of Whites", the only stipulation being to apply their chosen medium and visual imagery onto MDF squares painted white. These signifiers of ‘white’ squares are isolated and contained within a steel grid system of a variable, numerical system. Each system from one to ten, having their own universal meaning ending with the spiritual relationship of the number 10. Comprising of completion; one and nought becoming "One". An emblematical conclusion to the meaning of the work as a whole. However, there may be a shift within the contemplation of the ‘shifting sands’ of each work as they lie contained within the rigidity of grids, as it is the grid that represents longitude and latitude, providing a co-ordinate of the location to the viewer.

As the overall work comprises of many of the squares made up from the collaboration of twenty plus artists, the formation of the grids contain memories and signage that have become mixed together to become a collective memory of what has been, what is now and what is yet to be, with all the connotations of the meaning of White.

A structured togetherness of "Shades of Whites".

Jo Chester