French to English Art/Literary Art, Arts & Crafts, Painting Perception and image construction

I am working on another visual art-related document that describes how the artist's painting and artwork examine perception and image construction. Because he resorts to natural, scientific, and historical curiosities, he is able to move cognitive and visual references in his images systematically. This artist does not use vivid colours in his work; instead, he uses colour tones.

In the sentence below, I am not sure how to render the queried phrase effectively. I have an inkling that this artist has used it metaphorically:

« Je travaille non pas avec des couleurs vives mais avec des tons, considérant qu'ils sont plus enclins à s'apparenter aux COUCHES DE LA MÉMOIRE ». (My capitalization for emphasis.) I started out by translating a part of this sentence as follows: "[...] instead, I use colour tones, for I think they are more prone to resemble [...]"

Do you have any translation ideas? Thank-you for your unfailing help!