Color Experiment "Anxiety"

Color Experiment, M-4, made while Laughlin was working for the United States Office of Strategic Services. "This, and M-5 and M-6, are called "Dye Colors" because they represent a new kind of technique for which, at present, there is no more suitable term. They are made on mordanted paper of the sort commonly used for Wash-off Relief prints, but they are made freely, without the use of matrices (except for a small portion of M-6) and the dye is applied in a variety of ways, but entirely by hand. They represent an outgrowth from the technology of color photography which has implications in terms of painting. In M-4, anxiety, with its hollow face, its seemed mouth, and its febrile hand, is embodied." - artist's caption.