IMPRINTED SEAL SERIES
4
2025
ARLENE RABINOWITZ
Sight through sound
Sound through sight
“Look
at walls splashed with a number of stains, or stones of various mixed colours.
If you have to invent some scene, you can see there resemblances to a number of
landscapes, adorned with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, great plains, valleys
and hills, in various ways. ” Leonardo da Vinci
Concept
of artworks
All the artworks chosen for this
exhibition were drawn to Rock jazz music. Namely to the band Deep Purple. The
aim of the exhibition was to find ways to translate the music to a personalized
visual language. The artworks are inspired by music and its analytical
translation to visual art.
The exhibition is divided into
two sections, black and white series where the artist wished to preserve the
impressions and atmosphere observed from her immediate environment. These were
drawn to songs from the album “Turning to Crime”. The second series is of
abstract drawings reflects time and motion via analytical translation of the instruments
played in the songs, “Apre’x Vous” instrumental version. “Wring that neck” and
“dancing in my sleep” There are connections to the meanings of images and
shadows and sound to sense associations.
Listening to music often conjures
images in the listener’s mind that can induce emotions in the process. The
theme of the natural world draws the viewer to consider alternative imaginary
meanings and its symbolic associations, which exist between them. The choice serves as a metaphor to varied
consciousness levels perceived by the artist to express deconstruction and
destruction elements. (Watchful Eyes). The spectator is invited to participate
in or identify with the visual language that the artist explored in her search.
The theme was explored in pastel and clear acrylic glazes on paper via
spontaneous linear marks and a fragmental approach.
Translation of music and its
perception
In the abstract artworks the
artist did not conjure an image initially with a song but in abstract mark
making technique following a linear and dots technique, a project called Sound
Travel. Whereby the analysis of the whole composition of the song and parts of
and later segments of the individual instruments, were drawn in blocks. This
was a gradual process and was divided into levels of transformative layers
perceived as a visual symbols or images. Working in layers upon layers whereby
(Watchful Eyes) the images appear and disappear using pastel and acrylic
washes. It was a process that revealed transformations from how the translated
sounds were perceived by memorizing the song numerous times.
The
Drawings & Technique: The interpretation and perception and sensory fusion of Rock music to painting
In the drawings in graphite, (Black
& white) are semi realistic artworks and inspired by immediate environment
of Neot Semadar. An emphasis on tree trunks like the acacia and "yanbut”
is evident throughout. The artist experienced shapes, texture and movement
creating landscapes that are referred to as maps drawing to the beat and tempo
of the music.
In the abstract drawings the artist
demonstrates sensory fusions through sight, sound, taste and hearing. Ways of
experiencing, seeing images the world of natural elements that the artist
perceived from the musical composition. Prints of various stages of the art
work (Watchful Eyes) demonstrate the levels of transformation between each
perception of the instruments used in the songs. Through numerous listening
sessions images likened in the imagination to symbols like waves, rock art,
architectural building, plants and bubbles appeared once further listening
sessions and the song was played to and memorized. The artist perceived the
colour choices intuitively when seeing a particular color upon hearing a
certain musical pitch or combination of musical notes.
The artworks represented in this
exhibition reflect the artists’ expression of translating a musical composition
to painting via analytical views of sound perceived. The music dictates the
direction of the visual composition in abstract form. Particularly Accents and
descents of the music and translating sound pitch dictates the direction of
sound in visual terms.
The visual language of the thematic art
works expresses the natural world through analogy, symbolism, Repetitive motifs
and chromo synesthesia. (Type of synesthesia in which sound involuntarily
evokes an experience of colours to a sound).
The particular colours were chosen by changes in instrumentation or
timbre, and higher and lower pitches were associated with lighter and darker
colours, respectively. The artist also experienced shapes, texture, and
movement creating landscape through the listening process of the sound. Whereby the artist explored the cooperation
between the senses (Sight taste and hearing) and the connection between image
and picture and shadows. (Watchful
Eyes).
The artist was also looking to
experiment and explore with different types of media such as pastel mixed with
gesso and clear acrylic medium which were used as glazes wet on wet and be used
as a fixative for each layer. (Watchful Eyes; Sail)
Her research evolved around image and
shadows of which numerous photographic accounts of transformation to the same
songs were done (Watchful Eyes) to arrive at the final piece of artwork.
The artworks were influenced by a
previous exhibition titled “Home” (1996) where the artist explored objects from
the natural world such as rocks, trees and unidentified objects from her immediate
environment.
Arlene Rabinowitz
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