A room-size immersive environment, part of Unknowable Exhibition organised by Laura I. Gallery, London and Artsy.

The environment was built inside Bankley Gallery, Manchester. Size 4 metres x 8 metres.

Every colour has both positive and negative symbolism. Yellow is the colour of light and happiness, but the flipside of yellow is associated with sickness, sensationalism, fear and madness. A yellow complexion is a sign of ill health, such as yellow fever and jaundice. The Yellow Book published the sensationalist drawings and fantasies of Aubrey Beardsley in the 1890’s. Cowards are described as being yellow and the artist Vincent Van Gogh lived in the Yellow House in Arles when he suffered his mental health breakdown.

The starting point for The Yellow Room was a mystery novel written by the French author Gaston Leroux, Le Mystère de la Chambre Jaune, published in 1907, one of the first locked room mystery novels. The story is set inside a claustrophobic room entirely decorated with the colour yellow. From reading this novel came the idea of immersing the viewer inside a predominantly yellow room.

Yellow is a colour that is both attractive and sickening. What we are afraid of may reveal itself by what we are drawn to. The Yellow Room is an uncanny installation within the exhibition Unknowable, it hints at strange perceptions and happenings, both familiar and unfamiliar, homely and unhomely.