Part of the Litchen & Moss Series

Litchen has long been collected for use as a dye, and contains orcein, a dye-compound which when activatd with ammonia, gains the peculiar quality of being reactive to pH. It is still used in the manufacture of litmus paper and reponds by changing coulour to blue in the presence of alkaline substances or red if acidic. This reacticity, and the unequivocal response to the situation has resulted in the phrase 'litmus test':   a test in which a single factor (such as an attitude, event, or fact) is decisive. 

This work is part of a wider series of botanical musings using colour,  exploring concepts and opinions that can be hard to pin down or measure. Metaphorically, the Litmus Test is a quick, decisive, and critical indicator - a yardstick used to gauge opinions, attitudes, or the future success of a broader concept or person. But we are in a  time of rapidly shifting opinions as what we thought to be true is challenged.  Age causes some of these shifts, polarising views just when it should open them up...a political or chemical spectrum?

Overlays of red & blue glazes, with a gloss finish that means that the viewer must move, relative to the light source to see the different layers, or discern the differnt scientific results and their many interpretations.