Isaiah Hope: Dream in Blue

Dream in Blue is a new installation for the 301 Frame Gallery by Montserrat alumnus, Isaiah Hope (’22).

Many artists go through periods of obsession with a theme that becomes the focus and embodiment of their work. For some, it’s a creature, an object, a style, a person, or some sort of muse. For Hope, the color blue has been a point of exploration and fixation.  He engages with how the color blue symbolizes both the ocean and the sky in the natural world and also how blue conveys human emotions. To that end, Hope has entered his own “blue period”–a subtle nod to Picasso–as a means to develop his own style and visual language. Using a variety of acrylics and inks, Hope creates a series of mural pieces that depict mythological beings and creatures of the sea. Through a style that dips in and out of abstraction, he imbues these mythological beings with sense of emotion that only blue can convey.  These beings are depicted not only as emanating from the blue sea but also appear to be in a human, dream-like state. As Hope states, “My desire is that when an individual looks at this, they can feel the emotion not only from the color blue but also the emotion that sea itself releases.”