A Room with Pink Walls
Last winter, I stayed in a room with pink/mauve colored walls in a hospital. That’s where my interest in colors really started.
The morning before I was discharged from
the hospital, I recorded with my phone the changes in the color of the pink
wall under the early morning sunlight. I imagined myself making a film. The sun
passed through the plane trees in St Pancras Park before touching the wall,
casting mottled shadows on the wall. These shadows flickered and jumped with
the movement of the wind and the sun, like a constantly changing scene. The
window frames also cast their shadows, dividing the space of the wall, as if
there were cities, roads, landscapes on the horizon, and more like the interior
and exterior of a house, or different rooms. The toothbrush and water bottle I
placed on the windowsill also cast their shadows. They were actors in this
movie. The shadow of the toothbrush was my father, because the electric
toothbrush happened to be given to me by my father, and it was a little taller;
the shadow of the thermos bottle was my mother, because that bottle happened to
be given to me by my mother. The movement of the angle of the sun caused the
shadows of the toothbrush and the water bottle to constantly change their
shapes and their relative positions to the shadows of the window frame and the
shadows of the trees. The story of the movie unfolded like this. Finally, I also
got into the film because my shadow was also cast on the wall.
The story of this film is difficult to tell in words, but the sunshine that morning told it. The story actually lies in the pink color of that wall. When I entered junior high school, I moved from my childhood house to another apartment, where my room had the same color on the walls.
I still remember one night earlier than that day, I was lying on my side on the bed, facing the pink wall. In the night, the pink color disappeared, but eyes adapted to the darkness could see the different shades of smudges on the wall caused by uneven paint application. As I looked at these smudges, I gradually felt streams of clear water flowing out, soaking my eyes and washing away the perennial hospital smell in the room. A cool, clean feeling permeated the room. I thought at the time that this was because the early morning sunlight absorbed by the pink color of the wall was released in another way. This ward faces the southeast, and the pink wall faces the window. Every morning, the sun shines on the wall and does not move away completely until noon. At night, the pink color dissipates in the darkness or fades in the light pollution of the city, but the energy absorbed by the color in the morning sunlight gushes like spring water, bringing the touch of morning light to every corner of the room.
I didn't really sleep those nights, my mind was filled with a lot of questions, a lot about color, about the way color exists. The more I thought about it, the more inconceivable color became.
I also felt the energy of light. Without light, we cannot see color. However, different lights have different energies. In that room, there were three lamps, two on the ceiling and one on the bedside, which was a reading lamp. The light of each lamp gave me a different feeling, perhaps because of the difference in color and brightness of their light, the difference in material of the lampshade, and the thickness of the dust on the lampshade, or perhaps because of the electric current. Those different lights sprinkled on my body, some washed me like water and made me feel clean, while others wanted to suck away my energy and suck it into the light. At night, I turn off all the lights and let the moonlight shine on me. It was a completely different kind of light, different from the light of electric lamps and the light of the sun.
In that room, maybe I became a more complete person who drew.
The story of this film is difficult to tell in words, but the sunshine that morning told it. The story actually lies in the pink color of that wall. When I entered junior high school, I moved from my childhood house to another apartment, where my room had the same color on the walls.
I still remember one night earlier than that day, I was lying on my side on the bed, facing the pink wall. In the night, the pink color disappeared, but eyes adapted to the darkness could see the different shades of smudges on the wall caused by uneven paint application. As I looked at these smudges, I gradually felt streams of clear water flowing out, soaking my eyes and washing away the perennial hospital smell in the room. A cool, clean feeling permeated the room. I thought at the time that this was because the early morning sunlight absorbed by the pink color of the wall was released in another way. This ward faces the southeast, and the pink wall faces the window. Every morning, the sun shines on the wall and does not move away completely until noon. At night, the pink color dissipates in the darkness or fades in the light pollution of the city, but the energy absorbed by the color in the morning sunlight gushes like spring water, bringing the touch of morning light to every corner of the room.
I didn't really sleep those nights, my mind was filled with a lot of questions, a lot about color, about the way color exists. The more I thought about it, the more inconceivable color became.
I also felt the energy of light. Without light, we cannot see color. However, different lights have different energies. In that room, there were three lamps, two on the ceiling and one on the bedside, which was a reading lamp. The light of each lamp gave me a different feeling, perhaps because of the difference in color and brightness of their light, the difference in material of the lampshade, and the thickness of the dust on the lampshade, or perhaps because of the electric current. Those different lights sprinkled on my body, some washed me like water and made me feel clean, while others wanted to suck away my energy and suck it into the light. At night, I turn off all the lights and let the moonlight shine on me. It was a completely different kind of light, different from the light of electric lamps and the light of the sun.
In that room, maybe I became a more complete person who drew.