The colour circle series

Olafur Eliasson’s The colour circle series consists of three parts, each of which comprises three prints.

The constant colour circle is based on the three primary colours red, blue and yellow. It is the base for the colour mixtures in the other eight works of the series. For The double constant colour circle, Eliasson mixed opposing colours, and for The triple constant colour circle, he repeated this process a second time. The second part of the series is an investigation of the three primary colours themselves, while The colour circle series Part III consists of a black, grey and white colour circle.

The depiction of a colour wheel evokes associations of objective scientific research – the chromatics studies of Sir Isaac Newton or Johann Wolfgang Goethe may come to mind. But as a matter of fact, Eliasson’s The colour circle series is the product of artistic decisions regarding the shades of the represented colours, the design, the length and width of the individual colour fields, or the distance between them. What presents itself as an image of scientific authority is indeed the result of a series of utterly personal choices, as individual as the artist’s fingerprint.