Curio Folio: Impossible Colour (blureye)

You may have heard of impossible shapes, they are optical illusions that fool your eyes into seeing a shape than can not exist. The infinite staircase is a good example, by Escher. For my Curio Folio series I thought it would be a good idea to create an impossible colour, one that theoretically can not exist based on considerations of the rods and cones of the human retina. Working on the premise that certain types of squids have additional cones that allow them to see invisible parts of the spectrum, I reasoned that I could produce a similar sensation of an impossible colour for humans. After making some test paintings and showing them to one of the squids at the University research aquarium, with permission from the professor in charge, I determined that a combination of 3 dimensional shape and reflective iridescent pigments would be required to allow humans to see the impossible colour. In the painting, the center of the impossible shape is actually pure white, but if you look at it long enough, and blur your eyes a bit, then the center of the shape will fill up with small dots, then, if you are patient enough, the impossible colour will appear. It took me some time to see it. It was hard to describe, like cyan but with shimmering tones of magenta and yellow... visually it was the equivalent of peppermint ice cream, or maybe cherry cream soda, its hard to describe in words unless you can see it for yourself. The only thing left is to name the colour, since the colour is closest to being blue red or yellow, it should be called blue-red-yellow. or just blureye for short. 

Curio Folio: Impossible Colour (blureye), watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025