Velvet Violet sets the weight of the palette in luxury and creativity, and Gold Leaf is the swatch that breaks rank: a single yellow that stops the set reading as one note. Gold Leaf and Foliage Green sit on opposite sides of the temperature line, which is the tension the palette runs on and the pair to hold apart. Basement Black and Cut Paper Red sit 36 points of lightness apart, enough to separate a foreground from a background without forcing it.
Velvet Violet a saturated violet or amethyst: creativity and luxury with real confidence.
Gold Leaf an electric, high-visibility yellow: caution and euphoria share the same wavelength here.
Basement Black is black's softer relative, still authoritative, but with enough warmth to feel considered rather than severe.
Cut Paper Red carries urgency and appetite, the color the eye finds first.
Foliage Green blends green's calm with blue's clarity, a color that reads as clean, modern, and trustworthy.
The present rendered as the strange thing it is: collaged bodies, velvet and gold, the impossible staged in an ordinary room
Explore the full Afro Surrealism style guideIts decade on the timeline · 1970s