The research entailed three joint exhibitions of work by Kirkwood and Lancaster of two separate bodies of work that explored related and significant questions in contemporary abstract painting including those of authenticity and ambiguity. The significance of the research derives from the content of the work but is also denoted by the fact that two of the galleries are international venues, the third gallery, at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) confirms peer esteem and the entire project was funded by the Arts Council and UNSW. Kirkwood’s work in the form of a body of small paintings engages with questions about the experience and perception of colour. The work builds upon research shown in Japan previously and explores the question of colour ‘in itself’ (Greenberg). The work is original in rejecting the interpretative frame provided by a wholly reductionist reading in seeking to establish and develop the relation between the experience of a work and its role in interrogating the nature of perceptual experience. In this the work is both original and significant in making possible a new and positive statement about the poetry of the perceptual experience of colour as ineffable and ineluctable; providing for an approach to colour that is immersive. Its rigour derives from the approach taken in making the work, to the structures employed and the modulations of surface in the work that allows for the systematic exploration of colour, and through the accompanying reflective writing in the catalogue.