Afterimage

The other day, I was looking at flowers with my four-year-old daughter, and one was so bright it caught my attention. The color was intensely magenta, and I remembered that if you stared at it and then closed your eyes, you would see the opposite color. I asked my daughter if she’d like to try it, and she stared into the flower for twenty seconds and then closed her eyes. She said she saw a green flower in her mind. This phenomenon is called an afterimage, and it fascinates me. When our retina becomes exposed to the image, it creates a fleeting negative image, similar to the photographic process. 

Art creates visual memories that we catalog and sort, and they emerge and disappear within our memory. Sometimes, an unexpected arrangement of forms, a color combination, or the boldness of decisions makes an image have staying power. The pieces I’ve selected from NIAD artists are works that I want to stare at and hold in my mind.

Joe Ferriso grew up in a Dominican, Honduran, and Italian household in a doomsday cult in middle-class conservative Long Island, NY, in the 80s and 90s. Making art during church services and skateboarding after school provided an outlet for processing his experiences with authority. Embracing play, freedom, and optimism, his artworks are made from recycled and found materials. His sculptural and painted works are primarily concerned with how color relationships impact perception. Ferriso moved to the Bay Area in 2009 and is a graduate of The Cooper Union (BFA 2003) and Stanford University (MFA 2018). He teaches painting at Sonoma State University and lives with his wife, two young children, and a dog in Sebastopol, CA.