Our Spectral Vision creates a vivid environment that mixes luminous colour and radiant light. It invites visitors to explore their relationship with colour and our understanding of how we see it. By replicating the diversion of white light through large-scale prisms, West allows pure saturated colour to drench the room. Humans see seven parts of the colour spectrum, some animals see more, some see less. Our Spectral Vision is inspired by Isaac Newton’s seven-fold colour spectrum and blue morpho butterflies, Morpho sp, in the Museum’s collection. Our Spectral Vision is a new work by Liz West as part of exhibition Colour and Vision: Through the Eyes of Nature at the Natural History Museum, London from 15 July until 6 November 2016.
Photographs © Natural History Museum & Jim Stephenson