Blue Abstraction

Overview

Blue Abstraction 2012 is a single-channel video with sound of a performance by Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa. Shot in a continuous take that lasts just under six and a half minutes, it shows a young man standing motionless by a dirt road in the middle of a landscape. He is approached by the artist who carries with him a can of blue paint and paintbrush. He applies paint in broad brushstrokes across the clothes and body of the man until his entire form is covered. The video ends with the artist walking away and the figure continuing to stand still. Ramírez-Figueroa’s use of blue paint is a reference to the history of early black and white cinema, which utilised the tendency for the film stock to turn blue objects white by covering figures in the colour to create the impression that they had disappeared.