Humanae: A Portrait Series That Classifies Human Skin Tones as Pantone Colors

Aug 30, 2012

Angelica Dass (Rio de Janeiro, 1979) Photo Courtesy of Angelica Dass.

Artist Angelica Dass says all her projects are meant to deepen important social, cultural and racial identity issues. Her ongoing portrait series "Humanae" classifies skin color using Pantone’s color scheme.

Dass, who was born in Brazil, told Colorlines.com the real pursuit of her project is to "highlight our true colors rather than the untrue red and yellow, black and white."

Her artist statement describes her process and intention more thoroughly:

Humanae is a chromatic inventory, a project that reflects on the colors beyond the borders of our codes by referencing the PANTONE® color scheme. (PANTONE® Guides are one of the main classification systems of colors, which are represented by an alphanumeric code, allowing to accurately recreate any of them in any media. It is a technical industrial standard often called Real Color) The project development is based on a series of portraits whose background is dyed with the exact Pantone® tone extracted from a sample of 11×11 pixels of the portrayed’s face. The project’s objective is to record and catalog all possible human skin tones.

You may notice there aren’t many Latinos, Central Africans and Indians in the series and it’s something Dass is working on. She hopes to shoot new subjects all over the world but because she has to photograph her subjects using the exact same lighting system, traveling is tough. Currently all her subjects were shot in Spain, where she is living.

If you’ll be in the Chicago area between September 20-23 and are interested in participating in "Humanae" you’re in luck, email Dass at [email protected] and let her know you’re interested.

Visit Humanae.tumblr.com to view more of her stunning work.