Skip to main content

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. 



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pir-E-Kamil - The Perfect Mentor by Umera Ahmed: book review

The Perfect Mentor pbuh  (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. That
1 comment
Read more

Flaws in the Glass, a self-portrait by Patrick White: book review

The manuscript, Flaws in the Glass (1981), is Patrick Victor Martindale White’s autobiography. White, born in 1912 in England, migrated to Sydney, Australia, when he was six months old. For three years, at the age of 20, he studied French and German literature at King’s College at the University of Cambridge in England. Throughout his life, he published 12 novels. In 1957 he won the inaugural Miles Franklin Literary Award for Voss, published in 1956. In 1961, Riders in the Chariot became a best-seller, winning the Miles Franklin Literary Award. In 1973, he was the first Australian author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for The Eye of the Storm, despite many critics describing his works as ‘un-Australian’ and himself as ‘Australia’s most unreadable novelist.’ In 1979, The Twyborn Affair was short-listed for the Booker Prize, but he withdrew it from the competition to give younger writers the opportunity to win the award. His autobiography, Flaws in the Glass
Post a Comment
Read more

Sister cities discussed: Canberra and Islamabad

Two months ago, in March 2015, Australia and Pakistan agreed to explore ways to deepen ties. The relationship between Australia and Pakistan has been strong for decades, and the two countries continue to keep dialogues open. The annual bilateral discussions were held in Australia in March to continue engagements on a wide range of matters of mutual interest. The Pakistan delegation discussed points of interest will include sports, agriculture, economic growth, trade, border protection, business, and education. The possible twinning of the cities of Canberra, the capital of Australia, and Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, were also on the agenda (i.e. called twin towns or sister cities). Sister City relationships are twinning arrangements that build friendships as well as government, business, culture, and community linkages. Canberra currently has international Sister City relationships with Beijing in China and Nara in Japan. One example of existing
1 comment
Read more