I'm done with beige. And white. And neutral colours.

On re-discovering colours.

Currently in love with all shades of pinkish over blueish to greens.

On the way to my day job, I usually take the 15-minute walk through the historical city centre, where shop after shop is selling mostly unnecessary stuff. Anyway, this day, I was a bit late and therefore in a hurry, walking with quick steps along the street. I walked on, focused on not bumping into someone else, when I took a short glance to the left, where a big fast fashion brand has its store. I was happy to see that finally the sale banners, almost screaming at you and making you squint your eyes, had been removed and instead the shop windows presented the latest, light and air spring fashion. All white. Or soft beige. Occasional dots of colours here and there but … it was mainly all just white.

A feeling I had for a while now, finally turned into a solid thought in that moment: “I can’t see it anymore. I’m done with it. All this white and beige and neutral colours”. Almost all my t-shirts are white because young me realised that you don’t see sweat as much on white as on coloured clothes. The walls of my home are almost exclusively white because deciding for a colour would be a bold step, and what if I don’t like it anymore in a year or so? Then I would need to paint the walls again. Most newly build houses are white, looking like soulless blocks, as well.

And then there is beige, camel, earth-toned. I like earth-toned, as it makes you feel rooted and connected to the earth in a way. Many artists I know have earth-toned websites and create earth-toned artworks. It’s elegant, rooted, it’s not making a fuss, it’s neutral. You don’t have to make a statement and it’s timeless. But then, I’ve seen a woman walking through the city lately, wearing all beige and camel and it looked so weird. As if she had fallen into a mud-pit. I mean, yes white is nice on walls as you can cover them with anything you want and it will likely look good, it makes rooms brighter and it looks great on summer clothing. White clothes are kind of breezy and I wouldn’t want to miss some of my pieces; and I love to use it in paintings. For highlights and some kind of magical sparkle. But I’m so done with it. Overall.

Catching some spring sunshine on my tulips, art and beloved paraphernalia.

I want to make a statement. For colours. As art without colours is boring, homes without colours are boring, branding without colours is boring, clothes without colours are boring and life without colours is boring. Colours bring playfulness and fun, they show character and enlighten days. Not long ago, I also tried to make my home less cluttered, minimalist in a way and tried it for my paintings as well. I set out to create as elegant artworks as some of the people I truly admire, all earth-toned, soft, impressionistic, and fitting for many people’s homes. And every time the paintings turned out more colourful than I wanted them to be. There was more liveliness going on than I wished to. You could get lost in the details, not in the overall view and they definitely wouldn’t fit everyone’s home. Same for my home, as it’s cluttered with art, books and plants. Furniture – old and new – mixes and mingles, but isn’t that what makes it cozy?

Now, slowly, in the past few months, weeks merely, I came to realise that it’s not me: white, beige, all neutral. I want colours, earth-toned AND all the others. In my home, in my clothes, in my art, in my branding. I won’t go all over the place with it, but I enjoy adding a bit of it here and there and exploring it not from a place of ‘way too much’, but rather from a child-like ‘playfully enough’. I want this tapestry as seen on rebelwall or sandbergwallpaper or how they’re called. I want a bookshelf that’s not white or wooden, but blue or green.

All the while, I can’t stop thinking that by removing the colours from our lives, it was easy to disappear in the crowd, to not show character, to not decide, to stay decent and neutral, to remove culture. Things need to be minimalist and practical. A bright yellow wall is not practical, whereas a streetlamp is “just” a streetlamp, so why bother to make it more special, as it’s costly as all. Well, maybe because even if it’s just a streetlamp (exchange streetlamp through anything else that crossed your mind), it’s nice to have special things that show character. That aren’t erased with photoshop in images because they don’t add to the image, but that are enhanced and left to make a statement about our time. What kind of statement would make a yellow wall? How good would it feel to look at it again and again, seeing what you’ve had in mind when the inspiration hit you?

I’m done with beige, and white and neutral colours. They don’t bring me joy, liveliness and play. They don’t make me imagine toes being stretched in fresh, green grass on a spring day, with daisies all around, slightly blowing in a soft wind. Only colours do that.

What do you think? I’d love to read how you feel about all this white and beige in our lives. Share your thoughts in the comments, leave a like or share in your notes.

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About me: I’m Mareike, the writer of this newsletter hills to heart. I’m also the writer of my free Studio Journal newsletter, my Studio Blog and an artist, trying to capture the world around me with oils, watercolour or whatelse comes my way. Feel free to explore my art on my website and in my online shop.