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Iridescent Color: From Nature to the Painter’s Palette

The main aim was to establish methods for adapting and adopting latest nature-inspired colour-shift technology, currently restricted to industrial usage, in the context of fine art painting and in so doing provide painters with a unique, new medium and novel working methods. Existing rules of easel painting do not apply to the new medium; but, as nature inspired the technology, an exploration of natural phenomena can best inform how to overcome this hurdle. Thus, adopting a biomimetic approach, a thorough investigation of the varied iridescence-generating mechanisms in animals, in turn, led to technical ground rules for the new medium’s incorporation into painting.

The AHRC-funded Art & Science project ‘Sea Change’ (2007), hinging on a six-week residency at the Natural History Museum laid firm foundations for this work. Schenk undertook research into the various mechanisms that enable colour-change in animals, which provided first clues on how to adapt the novel colour technology for painting. Subsequently, in 2008, the artist was afforded the opportunity to continue her research during secondment at the University of Birmingham (Physics and Biosciences), forming part of Interact: Artists into Industry – a nationwide Arts Council of England initiative. The resulting journal article is the culmination of years of sustained scholarly and practice-based research.

The article afford artists an insight into the origin, rise and current state of the new nature-inspired colour technology, and also outlines the optical principals underlying iridescence and provides technical ground rules for its incorporation into painting. Drawing on latest findings from biology, physics and material science, the article demonstrates that understanding the fundamentals of iridescence in Nature can indeed aid artistic application.

This work was supported by AHRC (Research Grants - Practice Led) and the Arts Council of England (Artists in Industry initiative).