The compositions of Adrien Lucca are the results of research based on colour theory. The artist uses a scientific method to analyse and order colours in a way that is similar to how sounds are reordered to compose music. Indeed, both disciplines consist of various different parts that can be dissected and put back together again. Lucca’s studies are not indiscriminate, but comprise a web of formulae, calculations and techniques that imply multiple skills. They are the products of a perpetual process of learning. Instead of working with a single, central thesis, the artist tries to address a concatenation of topics – related to physics and colour theory, the history of painting, photography, and digital art. Up until now, the broad scope of the research has only partially been investigated, and chiefly for economic reasons, meaning that there is plenty of scope for the artist to explore it in greater depth. Often displaying the process-based approach that is characteristic of these analyses, Adrien Lucca’s drawings formally correspond to colour studies. At the same time, the artist experiments with geometric figures and optical illusions that actively involve the viewer. They lead or mislead the eyes and encourage a dance in front of the work, in which the viewer walks back and forth to observe the amalgamation and segregation of coloured lines. A new series of works is entirely generated by computer programmes and a printer. The artist’s touch seems to be reduced to the inputting of formulae. While the result is also largely a surprise to the artist, it is nevertheless the result of his predetermined parameters. In these works too, the process and the research are important, although the final result appears to be more like a finished product.

Ilse Roosens