More Colours, Less Colourants #1

Less is more.
The first time I read this statement, I hated it.
 
I was studying fashion design in Milan and I believed more beauty is just more beauty.
So when I read “less is more” I couldn’t imagine how less beauty can be more beauty. More colours meant more beauty.
 
But where is the beauty in the tones of colourants thrown away in the ocean from garment and hair dyes? Where is the beauty in the endless number of fish dead because of the high level of toxicity? Where’s the beauty of the hundreds of kilometres of marine reef destroyed because of the bleach and colourants?
 
Natural pigment dye on clothes can give great results in terms of aesthetic outcome and environmental impact when the starting point colour is off-white or beige. 
Natural pigment dye on hairs however is more limiting. If you’re naturally blond, henna will make your hair dark reddish and will not impact the environment.
But if you want to achieve any colours of the rainbow palette, it means chemical dyes, it means an impact on that marine reef and that species. 
 
Less is more. Less/fewer colourants means more fish in the sea, more variety of species, cleaner water, and more beautiful beaches. 
Less is more. Covering your white hair with a tonality that goes close to your natural one means you avoid de-colouring it in the first place.
Less is more. Choosing to dye in light blue tones your hair, but buy only from second-hand shops and only to replace your broken items, means doing your best to preserve ecosystems. 
Less is more. The less harmless products you decide to use, the more accomplished human being you are.
 
Because less is more, ‘Less (fewer) colourants, more colours’ is the name of the series of documentary paintings I started in February this year to picture one of the biggest tendencies of the last 2 years (hair dyeing) that impacts one of the biggest topics today, global warming. 
 
All the paintings are made with watercolours, as its pigments are known to be one of the most sustainable ones, with minimum or no impact on the environment as it uses minerals and plants as colourants.
Watercolours give me the possibility to use as less colours as possible to reach as much visual impact as possible.