Fashion changes the way we see.

I am an 80s kid through and through. I mean, I was born in the 70s, but all of my awareness that there is a larger world out there basically starts with the end of the Iran Hostage crisis and develops moving forward. And that’s an interesting place to be, right now, because I’ve noticed some things about fashion and how it’s changed and how those changes have changed the way I experience the world that are making me think hard about art.

When I was a in my teens, orange and fuchsia were a big color combination. People would layer t-shirts, wear two pairs of scrunchie socks in vivid neon colors, and so on. You’d also see yellow and black (I had a pair of black jeans with yellow paisleys) and yellow and acid green. Also blue and hot pink.

You’d never see the orange and blue combinations that are trendy now, and which seem so appealing to me—or green and purple worn together by anybody but the Joker.

But now the aesthetic has shifted to complementary colors, and our eyes have been retrained to see those as appealing. (I don’t believe that the clashing muted earthtone hues of the 70s ever looked good, however. A cool olive green and a warm brownish orange just are not okay companions.)