Black is the most primitive of colours.
Actually, I think it is a precolour (like prehistory) — the colour that existed before we understood colour. This notion is supported by its presence in prehistoric cave-paintings. And, echoing back to those ancient roots, comes it’s most common source: Bones. When we paint with black, we are still smearing an opaque layer of animal — imbedded with all these memories — across our canvas …
It is also inseparable from burning. Even when I’m handling it as a finished pigment, I can still smell its sooty aroma as I grind it and feel the echo of its experienced heat on my hand. And, like the fire from which it originates, black is a tenacious colour; one that is impossible to hide once it touches the gesso (or a hand).
These dark pigments are incredibly rich — anyone who thinks of them as the absence of something hasn’t looked closely at black! This group of pigments represent a wide tonal variety of warmth and coolness, and they share other hues within their nigrescent colouring; all of which is only seen as if through different depths of deep smoke …
Black is the very first pigment I ever made myself.
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