MANUFACTURING AESTHETICS

Manufacturing
Aesthetics

Oleksiy Koval
Songshan Lake
Boxes Art Museum
Dongguan
09.29 – 12.10
2026

Ratios and rhythm shape not only form in music, literature, or architecture, but also the formation of color chords. The relationship between reflection and absorption of visible-spectrum wavelengths lies at the origin of the WMYCB color system. The five primary colors White (W), Magenta (M), Yellow (Y), Cyan (C), and Black (B) are spectrally pure and materially defined, like printing inks — unlike classical color wheels, whose primaries cannot be mixed in a truly pure way. The color system comprises 7,500 color chords, formed by mixing the five primary colors. The gradations of mixing ratios are structured so that ratios approaching the Golden Ratio emerge more strongly. This allows for diverse work with color tones without losing their harmonic relationships — the rhythm brings this forth on its own.

Whether a color tone is chosen illustratively, narratively, symbolically, or by personal preference — the rhythm of the WMYCB color system’s chords shapes visual communication that is both high-contrast and coherent. The color selection for the companies 睿华玻璃 (Ruihua Glass), 微石集团 / 拼酷 (Wist Group / Piececool), and 净达环保 (Jingda Environmental) consists of illustrative, narrative, symbolic, and personal associations. The selection of color chords moves within ratios that approach the Golden Ratio, such as 2:3, 5:8, 3:5:8, or 1:2:3:5:8.

For the exhibition at Songshan Lake Boxes Art Museum, I presented the compositions with rhythmic motifs ranging from the smallest, basal unit 1 to the largest, 8, along with the resulting color chords representing each company, in digital form on LCD walls and LED screens.