Over the years, Ane Vester has put together an archive of colour swatches. She considers colour to be
more than just a colour. It houses the time and place of memories. A moment is captured as a
monochrome surface, as an object removed from its context and purpose. Vester relives memories by
combining shades to one specific taint – this search lays at the core of her practice. A poetic approach
to a painted surface leads Vester to distance herself from the historical structure in which her abstract
body of work gets positioned. By adding a specific word, connected to the remembered object, Vester
creates an associative game where colour attains another meaning in the present time.
By an assembly of several shades next to each other, she recreates the past or a new present reality. This way, colour questions reality. “The things we see aren’t the only things seen, but our past plays a big role in
determining what we witness in the now.” Her wooden sculptures of repositionable colour blocks are
a dimensional representation of memories as building blocks to our reality. Vester’s monochromes on
glass are a representation of the tangible world built out of different timeframes. To Vester, her choice
of materials are an extension of the characteristics and the connotations given by her to the colours.

text: Lieve Shukrani Simoens

Artists: Ane Vester