Artist 6/20: Christian Faur

True Colors

So I did have this brilliant idea to use crayons in the form of a mosaic but this bastard Christian Faur beat me to the punch. It's brilliant no?! In leiu of the latest assignment to find ready-made object to transform I figured crayons might be appropriated due to their abundance and neglect in the highclass art scene. I've decided to still use crayons but I may have to alter my use of them...or I could just be a sneaky bastard, do the mosaic, and claim I knew nothing of Christian Faur. But no, I have another idea.



"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog."



The man must be a genius. Why do I think this? Because when I read his stuff he sounds like he's bat shit crazy. Currently one of his projects is to develop a color alphabet. By representing each letter of the alphabet with 26 distinct colors he can spell words using color sequences. With this system the color image above reads "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog". He is fully aware of the flaws of this system as 10% of men are color blind, our perception of color is dependent on light and that color fades over time. However this isn't that far-fetched of a concept as I personally am fluent in a writing form called IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet). Essentially the concept of letters like C having two different sounds (S or K) is thrown out the window and a set of internationally recognized symbols are used for every linquistical sound. With this there is no uncertainty as to the pronounciation of a word. However Faur has gone on to create specific symbols or "glyphs" to including elements like punctuation, numbers & capital letters. People have a very difficult time with color distinction and memory so translating his alphabet creates a new link between the two sides of the brain to an unprecidented degree.

The Mating Jacket

Faur has incorporated this system into some of his artwork like The Mating Jacket. On a white jacket, he has inscribed..er..painted various male oriented pick-up lines. (i.e. Are you legal? You’ll do. I think I could fall madly in bed with you. I'm an organ donor, need anything?) Fraur aims this particularly toward women as females of all animal species are much better at color distinction. This is particularly evident amongst birds with males displaying their typically more colorful plumage during 'mating' season.

He does not restrict himself to crayons however. Another of his ready-made mediums is paper. Very much like his crayon collages, Fraud uses scredded paper of various shades to create an image. While I am pissed that my original idea was not necessarily unique, I am absolutely fascinated by this artist. He does indeed use ordinary objects and makes them extraordinary but he does so by the cunning and innovative use of color. We've always been aware of the symbolic uses of color but I'm not aware of it ever being used to formulate fully functional, cohesive, finite thoughts.

The Dance

Just Paper

The Forgotten Children Series
Boy (words written in color)

Experiment 5