Simple Interruptions

“Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.” You’ve probably all heard this adage and may even find yourself repeating it like a mantra as you sit at your studio table while tempted to add just one more color, one more accent or one more layer. Many, many times, you should really opt for the more simplistic approach. I want to focus on that this week. Let’s talk about simplicity as an approach and see just how beautiful simple can be.

This pendant is one in a series by Belgium’s NiQui that I think is very successful for it’s restraint. The mash of color within this monolithic black form is all about contrast and restriction, which makes what little color there is very strong. The stripes of marbled color break the line of the bar of black very suddenly and certainly, and then pulls your eye immediately to it. Depending on your view, or maybe even how your day is going, you can see that as lines breaking into the solid bar or as color being compressed to nearly nothing by the black.  Either way, you probably sense that there is energy and some kind of relationship between the contrasts of no color to a mishmash of it, and the question of what that relationship might be is what holds you there. It may be simple, but it holds the potential for complex ideas.

Simplicity is Nicole’s (NiQui’s) hallmark. If you want to see a lot of exploration in this area, do take a look around her Flickr photostream.

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