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Colour Music: a century of abstract art




Colour Music has opened at Drill Hall Gallery in Canberra, Australia. The exhibition (14 August to 28 September 2014) is a collection of works from several artists, all focusing on the connection between visual art and music. The pieces span almost a century, starting with a piece from 1919 and concluding with 2014 artworks. The framework for contemporary artists includes historical works from Roy de Maistre (1894-1968), Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack (1893-1965), Jozef Stanislaus Ostoja-Kotkowski (1922-1994), and Frank Hinder (1906-1992). For example, Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack’s Optical Spinning Top (with 7 colour blend rings) in wood and printed card is circa 1960. In a separate room is the light show extravaganza by Botborg called Neural Luminance Amplifier (2104) - a three channel DVD (photograph below).



The paintings – they are not computer-generated – experiment with light, kinetics, and musical collaborations. These include pieces from John Aslanides, such as Sonic Networks no. 13 (2013) and Sonic Networks no. 14 (2014), oil on canvas, shown below.




Two of John Nixon’s pieces include Colour Rhythm Disks 1-6 (2009) which include 6 disks, MDF panels and turntable on a table, and Colour Music (2006-2010) which is a series of 28 panels of enamel on MDF in conjunction with a Yamaha electric piano coloured with wooden blocks (shown below).




David Sequeria exhibits Symphonic Poem (2014), gouache on composition sheets – 48 sheets form the artwork (below).


  
On Friday August 15 the Artists in Conversation included participating artists with Drill Hall Gallery curator, Tony Oates. Oates described the works as “forward thinking objects” that embrace technology, “linking the beginnings of abstraction to the relevance of kinetic art today.” For example, the light boxes on display were made before video was invented.

John Nixon articulated his inspiration for the Colour Rhythm Disks – “I had an idea of implied movement – what would happen if you make the painting move … I like trad jazz with a line-up of six people, six instruments, so this was the starting point for me [for his 28 panels on Colour Music].”

David Sequeria explained how he worked at his dining table on the individual 48 composition sheets. Seeing them installed all together gives the pieces an altogether different appearance. John Aslanidis found his Sonic Networks challenging “working with compositional points to underpin the work” which was “purely improvisation” – although it was the algorithm that gave the works their structure. His works were also inspired by the vibrations of electric music that is both harmonizing and fracturing. 



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