Chroma with Central St Martins

Fine Art students are invited to explore the origins, making and emotional life of colour. From how pigments become paint to the ways colour shapes storytelling and how it can expand creative practices far beyond traditional painting.

Understanding and exploring colour

The project begins with a visit to the historical Winsor & Newton archive and laboratory in West London. Here, the students are introduced to the history and material science behind artists’ colour. Demonstrations explore how pigments are sourced, processed and transformed into paint.

The students then participate in workshops led by practising artists, experimenting with materials from Winsor & Newton. Rather than approaching colour through a purely technical lens, these sessions encourage an open-ended investigation into how colour behaves, communicates and carries meaning across media. Included in this process are a variety of forms and mediums, such as painting, installation, writing, video and sculpture. Importantly, no prior knowledge of painting or technical colour theory is required.

The Making and Meaning of Colour

At the heart of the project is an exploration of colour in relation to memory and narrative. Rather than treating colour as purely visual, students are encouraged to ask deeper questions. Who, or what makes a colour? What is its substance (or lack thereof)? Does colour trigger memory, and can it structure a story?

The project immerses students in historic archive visits, laboratory experiences and collaborative sessions, before culminating in Chromaphilia, an exhibition hosted by APT Gallery.

Colour as storytelling

Chroma immerses students in the physical and conceptual dimensions of colour beyond just the visual – they are persuaded to see colour as material, memory and narrative. As such, they are given by CSM, a colour-focused reading list featuring extracts from the Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson, Bluets by Maggie Nelson and Chroma by Derek Jarman. These texts become prompts for writing exercises that explore the personification of colour, its emotional resonance and the ways that it shapes narratives.

Students are also introduced to digital colour theory and editing techniques, creating a bridge between analogue experimentation and digital production. By the end of the programme, the participants will have produced a video work that translates their material investigations into moving image.

Colour exhibited

In 2026, works developed throughout the programme were showcased in the group exhibition, Chromaphilia, hosted at APT Gallery with support from Winsor & Newton. The ideas developed this time, were displayed as a shared sensory environment. Colour moved beyond representation and became something encountered: atmospheric, immersive and alive.

Taking inspiration from David Batchelor’s Chromophobia, the exhibition approached colour not as embellishment, but as a force in itself. Across film, painting and sculpture, the exhibited works depicted colour as unstable and emotionally charged, something that resists being contained.

Colour screenings

Alongside the exhibition, student films were screened at Winsor & Newton’s headquarters, Colart, extending the project’s analogue investigations into digital form.

Beyond colour

Chroma sees Fine Art students introduced to a professional creative practice rooted in material understanding, research and curiosity. By opening the Winsor & Newton archive, laboratory and material collections to students, we have been able to embrace knowledge transfer and bridge the space between technical knowledge and creativity. Sometimes understanding colour begins not with a palette, but with conversation. When students are given a collective space to discover its full dimensions, colour becomes more than a visual – it is something made, remembered, described, felt and experienced.

Learn more about our other partnerships and collaborations

International Art Prize

A free to enter open call for drawing and painting running simultaneously across London, New York and Paris, founded by Winsor & Newton and Paul Smith’s Foundation in partnership with ArtReview.

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Hospital Rooms

We’re proud to announce an extended partnership with mental health charity Hospital Rooms, who aim to transform mental health treatment spaces by commissioning artists to install artworks, providing a welcoming and dignified environment.

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The Drawing Factory

This once-in-a-lifetime artists’ residency took place at The Drawing Factory, in Paris’s vibrant 17th arrondissement, a largely residential area north of the Arc de Triomphe. Artists were invited to occupy five floors of rooms that were repurposed into art studios for six months.

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