Creative Lives Talk
Aoibhin Maguire
The role of colour is vital in Maguire's work as colour can speak for itself. Simialr to how pink is her sanctuary colour, colours can make you feel different emotions by just being in its presents, such as sky blue, which is known for being a calming colour. The way you use colour could change the emotion and composition of a piece.
Today I attended a creative lives talk hosted by two artists doing their MA at the Royal College of Art, Aoibhin Maguire and Emily Kraus. The artist that I was the most interested in was Aoibhin Maguire. I was fascinated by how she worked, contributing bold, bright colours and adding a textural component into her paintings using found materials of lace and ribbon. She spoke about her practice developed during the covid lockdown and found that she had an obsession with the colour pink. The colour pink turned into a safe place, a comfortable colour that is her own, which led her to cope with her isolation.
I was drawn to Maguire's work because of her use of colour, which reminds me of my artwork. Simialr to Maguire, I work in many colours. When looking through my experimental pieces, I realised that I have my specific colour palette, which always leads back to the primary shades of red, blue, and yellow. I automatically choose these colours as it is the colours of my birth country, The Philippines. I feel I am leaving a part of myself and showing pride in where I came from by contributing these colours to my pieces. To me, red, blue and yellow represent a part of my home and are my comfort colours.
In my project about constructing the Sports hub in Blakelaw Park, colour plays a significant role. I use colours to represent a group of people or give a different meaning. The colours pink, blue, purple and yellow, keeps being reused throughout my pieces. They represent the young people and the community. White which is the colour of the net that drapes over the coloured block pile, represents weakness and innocence. In contrast, red is used as a colour of danger, urgency and strength.