The saying goes ‘blue and green should never be seen’. As a rule of colour its origins are murky – but it likely relates to the fact that the colours sit next to each other on a standard colour wheel. Their closeness in tone means that it can be difficult to create a pairing of the two colours that has a contrast that pleases the eye. The two often merge and make differentiation hard. So much so that many ancient cultures had no word for blue, instead understanding it as a version of green.
With this knowledge the saying becomes a comment on the gap between sight and perception – vision is one thing but understanding that what we see is another.
Never Be Seen is an exhibition of artists who utilise the tension inherent in perception – through the literal use of blue and green tones, the telling of histories hidden in plain sight, forgotten objects, slippages in language, and unnerving contrasts. To truly see and understand something is to recognise everything that makes it both beautiful and ugly, important and irrelevant, comfortable and uncomfortable.