Before It Was a Filter
A cuttlefish, whose famous ink has a long history as an artist’s material and gave us the colour we know as sepia.
Before It Was a Filter is part of my Beautiful Things We’ve Killed for Art series, exploring the animals behind materials once prized by artists— including the one whose name eventually travelled from sea creature to pigment, photograph and phone filter.
Nerd notes
Cuttlefish ink gets its dark colour from melanin — the same pigment responsible for much of the colour in human skin, hair and eyes. When threatened, a cuttlefish can mix that ink with mucus and eject it as a dense blob called a pseudomorph. The blob can act as a decoy, leaving the predator attacking a fake, inky cuttlefish while the real one escapes.
Details
Handmade, one-of-a-kind artwork
Unframed
A4 — 21 × 29.7 cm (8.3 × 11.7 in)
Mixed media collage on paper
