Humans have never ceased to describe the vibrant world around us, but we observe more than we can distinguish with words, and language alone has never been enough to express its evolving richness. Color expressions are also limited to being functionally sufficient for academia and industry. Could we be more nuanced when describing colors? 

Vernacular highlights the relationship between the desire to name things around us and the awareness of this unlikely task. The collection examines the specificity of color by materializing its physical ingredients. These natural pigments are collected and processed by hand in small quantities into pastels. Each pastel consists of a pure and rare pigment with the lowest binder to pigment ratio.

Designed as a set of building blocks to infer the relearning of colors, each color imprints a syllable from its source material. These blocks are encased within a display on a gray backdrop, a standard neutral background for evaluating colors.

“Sur” Ceramic glaze from Jingdezhen 65g
“Hai” Soil from Shanghai 60g
“Sol” Soil from Italy 60g
“Bo” Bone black from Yunnan 50g
“Ka” Thangka from Shangri-La 50g
“Hee” Hematite from Hunnan 60g
“Zoo” Azurite from Afghanistan 58g


Single-source natural pigment, artist-formulated natural binder, and aircraft-grade 7075 aluminum base

415 x 70 x 24.5mm

Contact for availability