I am not inspired by Music

I paint music … I don’t paint “inspired” by music

When an artist paints a still life no one ever says that it is “inspired” by a still life; they say it is “of” a still life. 

I paint music but my work is continually described by others as “inspired” by music. I do not see it this way. I am literally painting music as I “see” it. 

Music for me is an entity in itself. It is an object that travels through time. Art is an object that is static in time. My job is translating the object of Music into the object of Art. 

I am aware that this concept is strange to many people and may puzzle some. I do not paint Music as it travels through time note by note. My process is an editing of what I hear and then capturing the essence of the Music to show it in Art. 

Still life is a good way for me to explain this: Cezanne’s still life paintings of apples are about so much more than simply trying to replicate the apples before him on the table. He uses the objects as vehicle to say something about how we look, how we see and capture form in paint. The apples become about the paint, the canvas, the brushstrokes.

Cezanne: Still Life with Quince, Apples and Pears (ca 1885-7)

I am using the object of Music as a vehicle to show in Art how our senses can intertwine; that Music has colour and form that we can see as well as hear. 

Beethoven Symphony no.9 from 100 Days of Music as Art

My work is “of” Music but it is not Music itself just as Cezanne’s  work is “of” apples but is not the apples themselves. You cannot taste the apples in Cezanne’s paintings. You cannot hear Beethoven’s 9th symphony when you look at my painting. You can see that Cezanne was representing apples in his paintings and you can see (hear), that I am representing Beethoven 9th symphony in my painting. 

My art should remind you of the essence of the Music that I paint. Music is not my inspiration, it is the actual object of my work. In the hierarchy of subject of Music and object of painting, my subject dictates what happens in the painting. This is why my work changes depending on the Music I am painting: Stravinsky should not look like Bach; Messiaen should never look like Brahms.

If my work was “inspired” by Music then my art, my paintings would take precedence over the Music. Instead my Art is dictated to by the Music I am painting. If I think that a dab of pink would look good in the painting but the Music doesn’t have any pink in it then I cannot add pink. I am a musician even when I wield a paintbrush instead of my double bass bow.