Music is my muse, my great influence.
I'm interested in what lies at the intersection between music and art. I think it all starts with music and then the rest of the arts are born.
This past year, I worked with Julian Picado, a musician who recently graduated from the Berklee College of Music. We first met during the Berklee and Boston Conservatory (BoCo) Interdisciplinary Lab Experiment, and now join forces to expand upon these initial exploratory sessions.
Julian wanted to present his mature voice as a musician, and I wanted to push my painting to a new level. We discussed for months the possibilities of how artists are working with musicians in today's world, what can we do with technology while continuing to embrace traditional processes, materials, instruments?
We decided to present the first project born of this dialogue at the Space Studio in Somerville, a flexible film and photography studio run by Auspicious Phoenix Productions. Projecting a video on a large wall and on another, audio-reactive colored lighting, activating the space for the audience to view the paintings in an environment of light and sound. The musicians were placed around the space surrounded by gallery walls on either side, to be part of the installation, all the elements a cohesive whole.
I worked for several months processing the music of Massiff, electronic ambient music by Julian Picado and Alejandro Gonzalez, developing a new series of paintings in response to the sound. I believe it's about entering a new vibrational space. I like that it's not literal, it can't be. It's all feeling, fine-tuning these senses and seeing where they take you. That's what I like about responding to music. You can't explain it, you feel it. And being in that state of feeling, unconscious rhythms emerge.
Julian and I are planning the next project and will present another iteration this fall. I am interested in the merging of the concert venue with the art gallery, creating a new environment to view art, a fresh experience to engage the senses.
Stay tuned! There is more to come.
Poster design by Fotini Christophillis
Julian Picado, Massiff Photo Credit: Alice Chi Xiao
Alejandro Gonzalez, Massiff Photo Credit: Alice Chi Xiao
Audio-reactive light installation Photo Credit: Arevik Tseruyan
Video installation by Alejandro Gonzalez
"Orange Field", acrylic on canvas by Fotini Christophillis
Massiff album cover design by Fotini Christophillis