CHRIS COSTAN

selected rogue interventions (an ongoing project)

Working as a Color Designer/Trend Specialist for a fashion brand (as my day job), the color palette was a serious affair. I analyzed how/why people were wearing types of clothing/styles or particular colors at any given moment. I was an informed “spinner” of interesting tales on trending colors for merchandisers, sales accounts, and the sales associates found in the retail stores. Using the Pantone Color System (the standardized color matching method, used commercially and internationally) aided me in the job of giving my colleagues a sense of why I was recommending one color over another during a particular season.

In the midst of roiling waters of discord, the existential nature of current days has brought me back to the Pantone System. With these unsanctioned interventions, I take the whimsy and practicality out of this color system and apply the structure of the system to graver issues like the need of a positive human belief system or the problem of human dominion over the natural world or destruction of the planets water.

The drive to make art always involved irony/complexity, humor, absurdity and visual delight for me. This manner of working has shifted during a time of worldwide hardship and unrelenting change. The subdued sentiment found in these unsanctioned interventions has become a newer direction. Each of the interventions created, comments on international concerns and personal codes by using color, image and pattern as “symbol” (a la Pantone). Since 2019 while using this Pantone structure/format, each idea is established with explanatory text under the image. Each piece mimics but subverts the Pantone Color System with a distinct personal or topical issue. The different works shift from the emotional to the political…to the realm of the art idea. The “whole” becomes a collection of thoughts in the style of a diary.
The different narratives create a record of my experiences and viewpoints. Below is a sampling of approximately 135 interventions produced since 2019.

Click any image below to learn more about individual interventions pictured.