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When
times are hard —
the right time has
arrived for an American
Spiritual to lift one
up above the mundane.
To hear Sister Rosetta
Tharpe inhabit the
Gospel Blues song
quoted above, is to
elevate the ordinary
state of being. Let us
not miss this chance to
sing in response!
"The Day of Singing", 40 x 30 in. (102 x 76 cm),
Oil stick, acrylic & & mixed media on wood panel, 2020
I don’t paint without music. It surrounds one with a protective
layer that withstands the usual disruptions. It vibes exquisitely
well with the act of painting. And as this famous quote* intuits, let
us cut right to the chase — "All art constantly aspires to the
condition of music."
"Luminance", 24 x 20 in. (61 x 51 cm)
Flashe, acrylic, & textural medium on birchwood panel, 2025
Classical music composers sought to evoke natural & visual
phenomena — think Vivaldi and a summer thunderstorm, or
Debussy and the calm swells of the sea — without using words or
the need of accompanying text. Harmony and sacred
transcendence impresses itself wordlessly through the polyphony
of medieval, Renaissance and Baroque music.
"French Suite N3", 30 x 30 in. (76 x 76 cm),
Flashe & acrylic on birchwood panel, 2025
The early 20c. greatly accelerated this confluence of the genres.
Kandinsky heard the music of the spheres in the colors of his
paintings. Mondrian heard boogie woogie in his. Delauney heard
Debussy's slowly undulating sea waves.
"My Beating Heart" 30 x 24 in. (76 x 61 cm)
Flashe on birchwood panel, 2025
The Russians (the artists of the Russian Silver Age of early 20c.)
celebrated as apotheosis Stravinsky's Rites of Spring — brutal,
direct, influential, revolutionary — a Slap to the Face of
(conventional) Public Taste. The Abstract Expressionists let it be
known they listened to jazz. The Minimalists couldn't help but
find an ally in John Cage's altered piano — to say nothing of 4.33
minutes of silence that followed. The Post-Modernists, drunk on
all of that legacy and loathe to choose, mixed a heady brew of it all
— thrust, half digested, into the gallery showrooms of late 20th
century.
"L'oiseau du Vent - Tijuana Gift Shop", 18 x 18 in. (46 x 46 cm)
Flashe, acrylic, oil stick, pigment, & textural media
on birchwood panel, 2025
As the new millennium arrived on the froth of the Internet,
drowning in the promise of instant satisfaction, the early World
Wide Web simply threw everything (and anything) together — a
salad, not a melting pot (a social equivalent of Canada vs the
United States). Next, we all witnessed the Web, with ungodly
speed, become indispensable — quotidian, utilitarian and
ubiquitous; now it explained almost everything and solved almost
nothing. Which brings us nose to nose with our current
exclamation point!️ Our suddenly synthetic present is brought to
us grace of Corporate AI, with the promise to solve every equation
and dot every i upon request; correction... before we requested it!
"Waltz Me to the End of Time" , 24 x 36 in. (61 x 91 cm)
Flashe, glass beads & collage on birchwood panel, 2026
What are we thus turning into?.. With every style of art at our
fingertips, plunked out of virtual reality, aided and abetted by our
endless choice of musical soundtracks to set the mood... what
shall we now choose to become indeed?.
One partial answer, oft intuited — the human gesture will become
even more valuable, valued — and enviously imitated! Will the
human gesture itself then become a cliche.
And yet, right above it all:
hark, do you hear the sound of the horn?
for the Music never stopped — the rhythm, the beat, the interval,
the color, the emotion — and has no intention of ever stopping.
I can hear it in my head. Can you?
"I Heard the Syrens Calling", 30 x 30 in. (76 x 76 cm)
Flashe & collage on birchwood panel, 2025
Everpresent, the future IS now...
* "All art constantly aspires to the condition of music."
( Walter Pater, 1877).
I actually wrote a whole Scene4 Art Feature that expands this,
pregnant with complementary vibration quote! Take a read of it
here "Music and Art, Art and Music October 2023"
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