The Weight of Blue: Colour as Control, Patriarchy, and Resistance in My Work

Throughout history, colours have carried complex symbolic meanings, shaping how we see the world and each other. Among them, blue holds a unique and paradoxical space. It can feel both peaceful and authoritarian or sacred and rebellious. Historically, in visual culture, blue has been used to convey themes such as divinity, power, melancholy, and superiority. However, these days, marketing companies frequently exploit blue to exaggerate gender differences, often associating it with subtle authority and established traditions. This isn't just a coincidence; it's a calculated move to capitalise on trends and drive profits, seemingly without considering the broader impact on our social fabric or how we perceive gender roles. 

This article explores how I use blue in my series A Cry Still Unheard to represent systematic control and male power structures, drawing on the colour's long history and cultural associations. I have used cyanotype, a historic photography process from the 1800s invented by botanist Anna Atkins to document plant specimens. This process renders everything in shades of blue. In my current body of work, I use blue not simply as a colour, but as a force. Portrayed through the medium of cyanotype, blue seeps into every image, leaving marks on the surface just like memory. It is sensitive yet lasting, and holds many layers of meaning  (see Fig. 1). The colour blue isn't just about how things look, it's a meaningful link that ties together the past, our emotions, and the ongoing struggles over gender roles. In my art, blue serves as a symbol of how deeply ingrained control works, a quiet, powerful system—often led by men that shapes our lives in seen and unseen ways. 

I intentionally break up the strong presence of blue by introducing the colour red. The red here represents violence, unfairness, and the lasting pain of bad experiences. On the other hand, it can also represent a bold effort to be noticed or to stand up for oneself. Red is arguably the most powerful and attention-grabbing colour, with a history as ancient and complex as humanity itself; its pigments were readily available in nature, from blood to certain minerals. Across cultures and throughout history, red has carried a wide spectrum of contradictory meanings.

Together, blue and red create a visual and emotional dialogue that frames my investigation into gendered erasure, social silence, and inherited trauma

Fig 1. Deb, Madhvee. Series: ACSU (the ratio) - Counted, Not Seen, “Untitled.” (part of an installation), Feb 2025.

Histories of Blue, Structures of Control

Historically, blue has held many meanings, often contradictory. It has been used to sanctify and to challenge control. During the 1300s, Italian painter Giotto famously began using a costly blue pigment, ultramarine, made from lapis lazuli, to robe the Virgin Mary. His Virgin and the Child (c. 1305), for example, presents a divine blue that elevated the figure of Mary within the visual hierarchy sanctioned by the Church. His use of blue wasn't simply an artistic choice, it also carried a religious message (see Fig. 2). It reinforced religious narratives and controlled how viewers understood purity and femininity within the context of male-dominated religious authority. Giotto's use of blue went beyond religious reasons; it served to reinforce a specific way of thinking. (Gage).

Fig 2. Giotto. “Virgin and Child enthroned, surrounded by angels and saints (Ognissanti Maestà).” Le Gallerie Degli Uffizi, 1300-1305 c., 325 x 204 cm. 

Two centuries later, in 1523, Venetian artist Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne daringly transposed the sacred blue ultramarine of the Virgin Mary onto an intense pagan love story. In the painting, the mythical Ariadne wears a striking blue cloak. This color signifies her passion, abandonment, and transformation moving beyond ideas of her innocence. Titian liberal use of expensive ultramarine, especially in the sky, wasn't just about painting technique; it was a bold artistic statement.  In Bacchus and Ariadne, blue breaks free from its usual religious meaning and takes on new power (see Fig. 3). It becomes a colour of strong emotion. Titian’s blue does not calm the viewer; it sparks something deeper and more intense (Hope 170–175).

Fig 3. Titian. “Bacchus and Ariadne”. National Gallery, London, UK. 1520-3. Oil on Canvas. 176.5 × 191 cm.

Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night (1889) uses swirling blues to express emotional unrest and psychological turmoil. Painted during his time in a mental asylum, the sky’s intense movement contrasts with the still village below, capturing the chaos within his mind. Van Gogh’s blue (see Fig 4) actively expresses emotions, blurring the line between madness and beauty (Naifeh and Smith). On the other hand, Yves Klein (Ca. 1960) used blue to depict vastness and freedom. For Klein, blue was more than a colour; it was a gateway to the sublime, symbolizing the sky, the sea, and the boundless void beyond physical form. Klein often referred to the literary critic and philosopher Gaston Bachelard, who wrote, “First there is nothing, then there is a deep nothing, then there is a blue depth” (Stich et al.).

Fig 4. Vincent van Gogh. “The Starry Night”. June 1889. MOMA New York, USA. Oil on Canvas. 73.7 x 92.1 cm.

While blue played a crucial role in western religious and artistic narratives, its influence was not limited to the West. Even in the Indian context, blue carries an equally deep and ancient history. It is rich with its own profound spiritual and artistic meanings. While India didn't have its own sources of lapis lazuli—the stone used to make the valuable ultramarine blue colour—this pigment was brought in from Afghanistan through old trade paths like the Silk Road.

Indian artists used this bright blue in their wall paintings, handwritten books, and fabrics, especially in religious artworks. This vibrant blue colour stood for godliness, often seen when painting gods like Krishna and Shiva.

Famous examples include the Ajanta and Ellora Caves, where ultramarine created amazing blue colours in the ancient murals (Sharma). This trade shows how much India connected with nearby regions, with ultramarine symbolising purity and endlessness in Indian art. The colour also connects to Lord Shiva also known as Neelkanth (blue-throated), symbolizing his immense self-sacrifice during churning of the ocean (“Samudra Manthana”). 

In contemporary Indian art, blue continues to be a powerful medium for conveying moods, landscapes, and abstract concepts, reflecting this enduring spiritual and cosmic connection.

Beyond its profound spiritual associations, blue has also adorned significant architectural marvels. A prime example is the stunning Blue City of Jodhpur in Rajasthan, where many buildings are painted a distinctive blue, believed to keep interiors cool and potentially to signify the homes of Brahmins (BBC). The intricate Jaipur Blue Pottery also showcases a beautiful and traditional use of this colour in crafts.

Among prominent Indian visual artists, M.F. Husain—often called the "Picasso of India"—frequently incorporated blue into his dynamic and narrative paintings. He famously depicted Mother Teresa in her iconic white sari with a blue border, a series dominated by these hues, emphasizing her humility and devotion. Similarly, Satish Gujral, a celebrated painter, sculptor, and architect, utilised blue in his diverse body of work, sometimes in stark, powerful expressions that reflected the anguish of partition or in more abstract, meditative forms (see Figs. 5 & 6). Both artists harnessed blue's versatility to convey a wide range of emotions and themes within the Indian context.

(left) Figure 5. M.F. Husain, Untitled (Mother Teresa), Serigraph on paper,  22" x 14.5". Vadehra gallery, India. (Right) Figure 6. Satish Gujaral, Untitled Acrylic on canvas, 90 x 90 cm, Gallery Art.Motif.

What Blue Colour Conceals: A Dialogue Between Presence and Absence

As we saw above, the history of blue in art is long and layered; sometimes used to assert power, other times to express rebellion or vulnerability. These earlier uses of blue resonate deeply with me. The cyanotype process, which forms the foundation of my work, naturally renders everything in blue. This monochrome palette felt like more than a formal choice, it echoed something I had long felt but couldn’t yet name. Blue, in my work, has come to represent how social systems (particularly patriarchal ones) can make invisibility feel ordinary. It smooths over complexity, turning lived experience into silence. The repeated presence of blue creates a surface of calm that, on closer viewing, carries tension and unease.

I often think about how artists like Titian, van Gogh, or Gujaral used blue to explore emotion, control, and inner unrest. Their works stay with me, not as direct references, but as reminders of how a single colour can carry centuries of meaning. In my own practice, blue shows up not only through the cyanotype process, but in the concepts behind the work. It appears in the language of gendered rituals, in school uniforms, in national identities. These are the cultural cues that are framed as neutral but are often anything but. These recurring blue washes in my imagery become quiet metaphors for repetition and conditioning; the slow, everyday ways patriarchy is maintained and absorbed. I hope that in offering space to pause and look again, these works can gently unearth what is often left unspoken.

Installation of work (artist impression)

My own use of blue draws from this complex lineage. In contemporary culture, blue has been rebranded as masculine. It appears as stoic and dependable. It is the colour of uniforms, corporate logos, and institutional stability. In marketing-driven definitions of gender, blue is assigned to boys from birth (a more recent and controversial use, for which there are no dependable sources that can be found, as in various cultural contexts assigned colours of masculinity and femininity remains unclear), a seemingly benign ritual that masks a deeper cultural programming. This coding isn’t harmless; it participates in a larger framework that upholds patriarchy. In my practice, I have reclaimed this blue, this time not to reinforce its dominance, but to expose it. By using cyanotype, a process that renders everything in blue, I allow the medium itself to comment on repetition to suppress the possibility of existence for any other voice. The very nature of the process (sensitive to UV light and time) makes each print unpredictable, echoing the instability of memory and the uneven ways trauma is recorded.

Cyanotype becomes the ideal vessel for this inquiry. It resists digital perfection. It stains, bleeds, and fades, just like the histories I engage with. In a series of works addressing the prevailing issue of female foeticide and infanticide in India (NFHS- 5 | The Lancet Report), which stem from dowry practices and tradition conditioning that views the girl child as a burden rather than the bearer of the family name, I use cyanotype to highlight the absence of the girl child and systematic approach to silence the weaker. Blue becomes both a cloak and a wound. It hides what is missing while simultaneously insisting on its presence. Each work is hand-processed, some stitched with red thread; these are the gestures that appear small but are deeply intentional. These threads are not decorative; they act as incisions in the field of blue that signal rupture and pain.

Red, in contrast to blue, functions as a counter-force. Where blue is systemic, red is conspicuous. It marks the violence, embodying both sacrifice and a warning. In many cultures, red is also the colour of prosperity, is considered auspicious, represents femininity and fertility, but in my work, it becomes a language of protest. Through symbolic gestures of poking and piercing of embroidery and hand-marking, red reclaims space that blue tries to suppress. The interplay between the two colours becomes a tension between domination and resistance, concealment and exposure.

My visual language is further shaped by my personal history. I was not directly harmed by patriarchal violence, but I grew up witnessing the normalization of inequality, the burden of traditions, the silencing of protest. These experiences were quiet yet profound. They shaped my understanding of control. My work explores this silence. It asks what is lost when voices are never raised, when suffering is equated to womanhood, seen as a virtue and endured silently to uphold the honour and social image. Blue, in this sense, is not just a colour but a condition. It is the air many women grow up breathing.

This project began as an inquiry into gender-based violence, specifically the practice of female foeticide and infanticide, but it has evolved into a broader reflection on how control operates; it penetrates subtly through culture and generational beliefs (“India accounts for 45.8 million of world's missing females over last 50 years: UN report”). Acts of erasure do not exist in isolation. They are embedded in structures: in religion, in tradition, in language, in the colours we are told to wear, and in the ones we are denied. My work traces these structures not through spectacle but through accumulation of various marks and materials.

Colour as Conceptual Architecture

The use of blue in my work therefore carries historical, emotional, and political weight. It is a nod to the past and a critique of the present. It engages with history while pushing against it. Most importantly, it offers a space to contemplate what has been lost to silence over time. Red enters this space not to resolve it, but to agitate it, to mark it, to remember, to be seen and to be heard.

In this ongoing body of work A Cry Still Unheard, colour is not a choice of palette. It is a conceptual architecture. Blue is the architecture of control. Red is the architecture of reckoning.