CHROMAtex is a site-specific installation that investigates color mixing, fabrication logic, and the translation of two-dimensional media into volumetric form. Six discrete colors are combined spatially rather than applied to the surface, producing a luminous internal environment where color behaves as depth, overlap, and intensity that shifts with viewpoint.

Installed at the bridgegallery on Orchard Street in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, the work operates as a threshold condition between street and gallery, interior and exterior. The installation is experienced through a series of apertures that choreograph how color is accessed, delaying full legibility and framing perception through partial views.

At its core, CHROMAtex functions as a material experiment: paper—traditionally flat and representational—is used to construct a three-dimensional color field. Inkjet-printed paper panels are laser-cut and assembled into a convoluted surface, allowing color to be mapped volumetrically rather than pictorially. The result is a spatial image generated through aggregation and orientation instead of pixels or screens.

Fabrication logic is deliberately exposed. The interior reads as smooth and continuous, while the exterior is defined by visible binder clips that act simultaneously as fasteners and surface texture. This inversion foregrounds process and assembly, positioning construction itself as part of the visual system.

Rather than presenting color as an immediate effect, CHROMAtex treats it as information—distributed, layered, and discovered through movement. The installation operates as a test bed for three-dimensional color mapping, where perception emerges through navigation and where a familiar medium is repurposed to behave spatially, computationally, and volumetrically.

Photos: Alan Tansey

Find out more about the process:
Form Finding
Color Mapping
Quad Panels
Photos of the installation