The Linear Paintings reflect Kapwani Kiwanga’s research into disciplinary architecture and the use of color to engender certain psychological effects within the interiors of institutions, such as schools, prisons, hospitals, and mental health facilities. Each painting in the series features a two-tone color palette on drywall. Kiwanga’s choice of color reflects social hygiene movements and hospital reforms at the turn of the 20th century as well as the work of Faber Birren. Birren developed a color theory which is applied to the conditions of work, learning, surveillance, healing, and care. The linear division of the paintings evokes the separation of social groups and societal hierarchies with direct reference to historic sites of institutional control – such as the prison walls of a French penal colony of Guyana, operating rooms in San Francisco, a Canadian psychological hospital, or the workplace to improve performance, as in Chicago’s printing company RR Donnelley and Sons.