This past spring I received a Cullen Grant in support of efforts to create a new body of paintings. The goal for this new series was work that evoked musical forms.

A little over a decade ago I collaborated with a pianist, Gustavo Toloso, in a public recital where I created works of art in response to his performance of Ginastera’s Twelve American Preludes. As each of the preludes was incredibly brief, I ended up treating my on-stage role as performance art–although 12 mixed media works were made and exhibited at the conclusion of the performance.

With this experience as a backdrop, I decided to return to music-inspired works, this time confining the visual character of my paintings to the language of maps. Having worked directly from piano compositions before, I changed the tactic. This time I would focus on musical forms: the organizational structures of types of music (e.g. the sonata form). The three paintings which appear with this post are the results of this inquiry. Each indicates the musical form in its title.

Two paintings completed earlier in 2011 have been added to the Artwork page.

Etude, 2011, acrylic on paper, 13,5″ x 48″ ©

Pastoral Sonata Fragment, 2011, acrylic on paper, 10.25″ x 36″ ©

Fugue, 2011, acrylic on paper, 10.25″ x 36″ ©