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Leonardo, Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 219-221, 1982 Printed in Great Britain 0024-094X/82/030219-03$03.00/0 Pergamon Press Ltd. A NEW MEDIUM FOR EXPRESSION: PAINTING WITH LIQUID CRYSTALS Yves Charnay’ 1. 1 have been using liquid crystals for making paintings since 1974.I have chosen to use these materials as pigments forseveral reasons: their iridescent colors, the possibility of continuous modifications in color in a finished painting producing changes in form, and a certain texture giving a quasi-immaterial quality. The procedure of applying and sealing a liquid crystal ‘paint’ film that I have developed permits me to employ liquid crystals on large surfaces. A picture can be produced having a rather highly delicate quality. A completed picture has the aspect of a picture under glass having a thickness of about 10 mm. It can be framed and hung in a conventional way and no special mode of illumination is required. Advancing technology and the appearance of new industrial materials have induced many artists to seek new media for their expression, new plastic languages. Kinetic Art and Op Art for example, have popularized the results of such research [I]. Generally such artists choose a basic principle that they wish to explore: reflection of light, polarized light, moirt effect, etc. Then they devise ways to best exploit it. Someof these techniques have become the exclusive means of expression of artists, for example the Venezuelan artist, J. R. Soto, with his Op Art mobiles of blades and rods, and Carlos Cruz-Diez, with his parallel vertical light-reflecting blades perpendicularly mounted on painted canvases. Most of these techniques are not very versatile from the standpoint of use, but their apparent lack of refinement is an integral part of the artistic expression. The above digression is intended to bring our the difference between the use of a principle or of a device employed for some expressive function and the exploratory use of a technique that could serve in more diverse ways. Oneexample clearly illustrates this difference: theRororeliefs of Marcel Duchamp and graphics produced with the use of a computer. Techniques such as those employed in making tapestries, enameled objects and stained glass can be regarded as restrictive in comparison with the technique of painting, for example in oils, acrylics and gouache. Indeed, such choices of techniques are aesthetic choices, a kind of short-cut to an end. 2. My exploration in the use of new means of expression proceeded alongside my work as a painter and also in stage design. In the latter activity in 1967, together with the theatrical research group Meta-Art (Paris), I produced in a darkened room an environment of painted forms whose different colors were changed instantly by means of a very simple lighting system. The method employs the selectiveabsorption properties of pigments. Thus, a green form illuminated by a green beam of light was green, but when it was illuminated by a red beam it was black: the red light was absorbed. The moving beams of different colorsproduced complexmovements of forms: turning *Artist,3 Rue d’Aboukir, 75002 Paris, France.(Translatedfrom the French) (Received 23 April 1981) wheels, wave motions, motions along a line, etc. The lighting device that I designed for this purpose was later patented [2]. As a painter I have been interested in certain properties of color. I am particularly interested in the mutability and the immaterial appearance of colorants. A colorant for me is not an end, but a means to an end. I seek methods and materials that would amplify these desired properties. My concern with space, depth and mutability, which is expressed in certain of my drawings and, more recently in my works concerned with texture (Fig. l), has induced me to proceed in this search. Fig. 1. Untitled.India ink, paper, 60 x 75 cm. 1980. In the case of my work on stage design, the choiceofcolorants was dictated by their effectiveness in absorption. But in my art work, I wanted to enrich my palette and not to be restrained by choices that were too arbitrary. So I looked for other materials better suited to express an original poetic dimension. Before adopting the use of...

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