The Allure and History of Pigments: From Orpiment to Vanta Black

Nonfiction writer Stephanie Krzywonos opens a door into the histories of our most iconic and desired pigments, from ochre to bone black, lapis lazuli to mummy brown. In our earliest attempts to recreate the magnificent colors of Earth for our art, garments, make-up, and more, we mixed and alchemized matter drawn from the flesh of the Earth Herself. Stephanie follows a spectrum of colors from these origins, through the entangled webs of colonialism, capitalism, and the more-than-human world, to their synthetic replication and mass production, inviting us to see how our colors hold stories of both lightness and darkness. 

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Artwork by Studio Airport.

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