The Colourists
Sometimes, photographers will tell you they ‘see in black and white’, and shoot primarily monochrome, while other photographers eschew that mode completely, in favour of making images in real-world colour. This can be attributed to both an aesthetic choice, and also to the notion that colours infer information to an image, can imbue emotion, and provide an accurate depiction of a scene.
For lens-based artists Leslie Hossack and Peter Owusu- Ansah, colour is integral to their work, so I spoke with them to discuss how it defines their image-making.
Ottawa-based artist Leslie Hossack stretched her application of colours beyond convention by developing her own personal palette for the recent series, ‘Constructed Recollection’, in which colours represent specific memories of her childhood.
Born in Ghana, Peter Owusu-Ansah is a deaf visual artist living in Toronto, who also advocates for the disability arts movement. His Instagram bio simply states: ‘Deaf artist. No words. Just great sight.’ To scroll his page is to revel in eye-popping works saturated in bright, bold colours. Peter’s work speaks in the language of colour, aided by digital manipulation, to achieve his signature pop art style of imagery.
Q and A with Leslie Hossack:
1. Colour plays an important role in your work.
Can you describe your process for collecting and researching the specific colours that feature prominently in your projects? What sources or inspiration do you turn to?
When I turned to photography as a second career many years ago, I knew right away that I was interested in colour photography, not black and white. Colour helps me to see what I want to see in the world, and to say what I want to say in my work.
When I started post-producing the photographs in my series “National Socialist Architecture, 1933-1945” with Photoshop, I realized that I was acutely sensitive to the colours I was seeing on the screen in those particular images. So, I would say that the colours I created were informed by my knowledge of history but determined by my personal response to those events. I probably spend more time looking at the works of painters, past and present. I am fascinated by the use of colour in both classic and contemporary works.
2. For your series, ‘Constructed Recollection’ you developed a personal color palette drawing on memories from your childhood. Could you describe some of the technical aspects of creating the original colours used for this project?
“Constructed Recollection” is a series that I created in 2023 when exploring the idea that the medium and the message could be solely and uniquely colour. I wanted to see if I could say something without relying on a sweeping historical narrative, and I turned inward. I was still exploring the 20th century, but this time drawing on personal memories of growing up in the 1950s.
The result is an abstract autobiography inspired by childhood memories and informed by current research. I believe we are all moulded by the colours that surrounded us in our formative years. This collection presents a colour-coded record of my childhood, as unique and indelible as my physical DNA.
In Photoshop, I carefully mixed and personally named the 80 original colours that I used in this series. These colours from the 1950s defined a decade and shaped a generation. As a child, I learned about colours through concrete objects (crayons, clothes, food) in an analogue world. By contrast, the creation of “Constructed Recollection” was completely digital and did not involve my camera.
3. Your extensive body of work is demonstrably research-based in developing a storyline or narrative. You have an exceptional ability to turn raw data and information into art. How do you blend factual documentation with the emotional component of colour?
I was asked a similar question about my 2016 series “Freud Through the Looking Glass.” In my work, I try to show what the protagonist (Hitler, Stalin, Churchill, Mussolini, Freud, Hammershøi) actually saw while at the same time conveying what I personally felt while standing with my camera in the same spot decades later.
Colours can convey both what we see and what we feel. The emotional component of colour is well known. To take an obvious example, the colour red. But what red? Crimson red? Fire engine red? Blood red? I think I may be particularly sensitive to colour, and keep reminding myself that everyone perceives each colour differently.
You mentioned that I have an ability to turn raw data and information into art. I love research. I love history. I love art. I love travel. In my photographic practice in the past,
these all come together, allowing me to tell the stories of the powerful personalities and monumental events of the last century.
4. Your artistic strength lies in visual storytelling, and in distilling sweeping concepts into a sharply focused narrative – many drawn from 20th c. history. In what ways do historical events influence your choice of subjects, as well as the associated colours you incorporate?
I am attracted to geopolitical events of the 20th and 21st centuries. Visually my works are focused and unambiguous. This has always been the case but is even more pronounced today. As you say, historic events have influenced my work in the past, but now I am more focused on current events. In both cases, I use colour to reinforce the message.
As a photographer, I have always been consumed with creating colours that precisely represent my vision. However, as artists we cannot control every aspect of colour reproduction, nor can we know how individual viewer actually perceive the colours that we have painstakingly created.
“Colour is all. When color is right, form is right. Colour is everything…” – Marc Chagall
Q and A with Peter Owusu-Ansah:
1. In your experience as a deaf, disabled artist, can you tell us about what you aim to express with your art? Is there a personal story or concept that influences your approach?
My work is the meaning of who I am as a deaf person/ artist. My journey of life means seeing. In my journey of life, I found the visual art world to be my favourite place to find something to see. I have been observing the art world for a long time. I found that the deaf and disabled artists’ experience haven’t been included in the major art galleries, museums, auctions, art fair, art magazines. Deaf and disabled artists appear in local galleries only every once in a while. This is very painful for me, because it doesn’t tell me that able-bodied people who control all the art spaces in society count us in the dialog. BeforeI became an artist, I saw works by deaf and disabled artists shown at some local galleries, but they disappear after the show. This left a lot of questions in my
mind. Why do deaf and disabled artists keep disappearing? What do galleries and museums think about works by deaf and disabled artists? To me, not having dialog about deaf and disabled artists in the major art platforms is depriving our voice from existing. How can the society learn about deaf and disabled artists in a proper way other than how our abled-bodies oppressors influence the society that divides us. In my art, I aim to leave my marks in life where anyone may find it enjoyable by looking at them. They may also be wondering who the artist is, that will bring you to a deaf artist. My hope is that it wouldn’t change their enjoyment after they learn that I am deaf artist. I hope the enjoyment someone feels can lead us to have a conversation, or the enjoyment is enough in itself.
2. You referred to your work, ‘Violet in Blue, 2019’ as experiencing “infinite joy”. For many, colour emits an energy, or a vibrational frequency. It is recognized to influence mood and stir memory. What emotions surface for you as you work through your process with colours?
Violet in Blue, 2019 is one of my earliest works. When I first created it, I was like wow! Looking at it in stillness, I could sense my own inner excitement! It almost reflected my own cells and pathway from my mouth to the stomach.
3. You recently said that you “like to look at my work as if I could walk through from the edge to the centre”.
You worked on a series of prints featuring multiple, concentric squares of intense, saturated colour. Can you describe the formal process of creating your images, such as technical steps or artistic decisions made to achieve this signature look.
When I became an artist in 2005, I was always searching for idea that I want to create. I started with abstract painting. Then I tried street photography. I made one street photograph that I love, however it was blurry. I attempted to edit it using Windows photo editor. I screwed it up. It became pop art. I started turning a lot of photos into pop arts for months. I wasn’t satisfied and kept searching for ideas to communicate through. Just a random thought-- when I zoomed in one of my pop art works, I was wowed by some colourful pixels. I wanted to see what will happen if I stay zoomed in and continue to manipulate the pixels. The colours were always changing so I wondered how different ways will the colours change. I continued to manipulate to try and generate more intense pixel colours. It’s hard to make the pixel colours stay intense because after I save and go back to them, the colours faded. I had to figure out how to
make the colours remain. I did these manipulations from 2009 to 2013, executing all possible colours I could imagine in the universe in one place. Then I
zoom in and scroll around to observe and reflect myself all the pixels colours. I let my body react to colours that I feel connected to, and colours that I don’t feel connect to. I recreate all the colour codes that I feel connected to using photoshop to build layers of reusable squares and using the eyedropper tool to pick up colours and drop them into the layers. This is a part of the process, however, when I am creating my colourful concentric squares, I pick some colours from different colour codes that I feel connected to and add them to see the result. It is more likely that I get great results because of my choice of colours. So, I try to find all possible colours in the world/universe to observe and learn which colours connect to my body -- or the colours I find joy in and can share with the world, is my story.
4. Your newest creative direction speaks to an increased desire for simplicity, with an emphasis on open, negative spaces. There is a sense of randomness, freedom and less formal composition. What are your thoughts on this new form?
Yes! There is sense of randomness and freedom. I don’t believe that
anyone has clear idea what life is. So when we are born into life, there is sense of random places and things. That becomes our body experience, they become our sense of anything that is good or bad or nothing. I have seen this quote before: less is more. Haha!
This article first appeared in PhotoEd Magazine, Winter Issue 2024/2025. (modified)