Presenter - Jennifer Logun

Jennifer Logun, Adjunct Associate Professor, Pratt Institute
Afternoon Breakout Session

Color Insight Color On-site

Light Color and Design at Pratt Institute is a two semester Freshman Foundation studio, taught by professional artists and designers, that focuses on the factors, elements, principles and relationships of light, color and two-dimensional design. As an architect teaching this course I use the unique lens of spatial epistemology to identify “site” as the common ground between two-dimensional painterly space and three-dimensional inhabitable space. By conceptualizing site as a volumetric container for color, students engage color study both as a complement to the traditional visual elements of line, form, detail and also as a way to clarify and define space, form, tectonics. This specific use of site activates the initial steps of the design process so that color itself performs as the primary generator. This presentation will compare and contrast two projects: Color Aberration and Outside the Box. As the teaching of art and design in the classroom is different from actualizing art and design in the public realm, both projects merge 2d studio processes with engagement into public space at rational scale. For the first project, an interior public site is selected by each student as a location in which color/pattern as a deformed plane temporarily disrupts the everyday experience. For the second project, the specific location of Myrtle Avenue Plaza connects Pratt Foundation students to their community through the design and installation of color printed vinyl coverings to bring harmony to three large mechanical boxes. Although each project varies in process and scope, both integrate color as the primary means to engage spatial awareness.

Bio

Jennifer Logun is currently an Adjunct Associate Professor at Pratt Institute and has taught in the Interior Design Department and the Foundation Department. Her courses focus on color and design for undergraduate as well as graduate students and are a large influence on her explorations. She became interested in the intersection between color and three-dimensional space while pursuing her Masters of Architecture degree. Her graduate thesis explored The Materiality of Process and as an architectural designer she continued to look at projects first and foremost through the lens of color and materials. Jennifer’s current work weaves spatial constructs with rigorous color study. She paints in acrylics on large canvases using non-traditional tools and techniques. Gouache on paper paintings, color-aid on paper collages and hand-stitched fabric collages serve as studies for and meditations on her larger canvases. Her most recent pieces further delineate the juxtaposition of surface and volumetric color. Jennifer has lived and worked in New York City for over two decades where she also draws inspiration from unconventional conversations with her three observant and curious children.