British artist Stuart Semple today released his own brand of pink paint, ‘PINK’, said to be the world’s pinkest pigment. PINK is available for £3.99 from www.culturehustle.com – to all but Anish Kapoor.
Artist Anish Kapoor famously acquired exclusive rights to use the world’s blackest black in his art. Developed by NanoSystems, ‘Vantablack’ is composed of a series of microscopic vertical tubes. When light strikes Vantablack, it is continually deflected between the tubes, becoming trapped. The pigment is currently the blackest substance known – so dark that it absorbs 99.96 per cent of light.
Although originally developed for military and astronomic purposes, NanoSystems subsequently confirmed that Kapoor alone had been authorised to use the pigment for artistic purposes. And as Jonathan Jones began when he wrote on the subject for The Guardian, “Colour is precious”.
Semple remarked: “It’s not really very fair! We all remember kids at school who wouldn’t share their colouring pencils, but then they ended up on their own with no friends. It’s cool, Anish can have his black. But the rest of us will be playing with the rainbow!”
PINK is a highly reflective and rich powdered paint pigment, which repels light to effect a powerful fluorescence. Semple intends to make his paint available to as many painters as possible.
Purchasers of PINK will be required to make a legal declaration during the online checkout process, confirming that:
“you are not Anish Kapoor, you are in no way affiliated to Anish Kapoor, you are not purchasing this item on behalf of Anish Kapoor or an associate of Anish Kapoor. To the best of your knowledge, information and belief this paint will not make its way into that hands of Anish Kapoor.”
Stuart Semple is one of the UK’s leading post YBA artists. Perhaps best known for his HappyCloud performance from Tate Modern, where he flooded the London skyline with pink smiley soap clouds. Semple has held 15 critically acclaimed solo exhibitions internationally in Hong Kong, New York, Los Angeles and Milan. He has featured in over 50 group exhibitions alongside artists such as Peter Doig, Basquiat, Warhol, Richard Prince, Ai Wei Wei and The Chapman Brothers.
Semple has been featured across the media in The Times, Modern Painters, Italian Vogue, i-D, Financial Times and many others. He has presented for the BBC and spoken at Oxford University, ICA, Denver Art Museum, Southbank Center & Irish Museum of Modern Art. Stuart is an ambassador for Mind, the mental health charity.
www.stuartsemple.com
Twitter & Instagram : @stuartsemple
