The Colors of the Sea

2019

In The Colors of the Sea Otto Berchem analyzes and reflects on the interior landscapes generated by the ocean. Berchem, who grew up next to impulsive waters of the Long Island Sound, lulled by its rhythm; takes prose, stanzas, and lines from novels and poems about the sea; and explores how the sea manifests itself in his own work.

From his own chromatic alphabet - in which each color corresponds to a letter - Berchem presents a series of paintings that reflect on landscape, text, and nostalgia. The daily experience of Berchem is based on the delirium of language; on the one hand, his mother tongue is not the language of where he lives, but at the same time, art itself is an experience whose result is never confirmed. That is to say, the artist's job is to send messages that may never be received faithfully and that are possibly altered – or even enriched - by their receiver.