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Artist Statement

I paint while listening to classical music selected for its specific style. My emotional response to the music is "seeing" the colors of the instrumental sounds from some melodic or intricate passages. I consider how musical parts are at play in the spaces provided by the music which act as exits and entrances to the musical sound/colors. The colors I experience form the basis of my painting process, though not the only source since I rely on my intuitive process to contribute shape, space, and motion in my composition.

Music itself is abstract and like painting, has color, spacing, line and definition---the aspects that characterize my paintings and drawings. The texture limited to the canvas or paper surface is consistent with the highlytextured aspects heard/seen in the music and also by what I see develop in my painting in progress. Ultimately, the spaces created in the musical composition when all sound is suspended invites the same type of spacing in my own compositional process.

Space, line, and color create a sense of harmonious action or movement in which the repetition of color-shapes in a linear configuration is at play in the spaces. Those components form the harmony of orchestral composition. The painting or drawing is about the music insofar as musical components have their counterpart in the painting and drawing processes.

I do not intend to represent or express the idea or subject of the music itself, nor do my paintings reflect any obvious or specific aspect of the music itself, The music though does involve my emotional response that makes possible the "seeing" and "hearing" of color which through design and composition become my color-shapes that seem to move in space much the way musical notes rise in space.