[Today’s featured artwork for Day 68 of the 365 Days Project is by Myriam Levy.]
Music and art are creatively intertwined…
#68 – Visual artists and musicians share a universal language. A composer arranges musical notes in the same way a painter works with a palette of colors while their individual mediums complement and enhance each other.
One of my early mentors taught me how music can enhance the creative process. He invited me to his studio one day to observe him as he painted. He prepared his palette, cued up some Keith Jarrett and began to paint. I was immediately thrown into his world, his brush strokes following the jazz riffs from Jarrett’s piano. For that moment in creative time, they were one.
Many artists use music during their exhibitions to bring viewers into their world and enhance the visual experience. Some might arrange a short musical concert prior to opening up the exhibition room doors to allow visitors to transition out of their daily lives and into the realm of creative receptivity.
Like many musicians, featured artist Myriam Levy strives to “achieve harmony in a world full of opposing forces.” Her preferred medium is encaustic, an ancient painting technique using hot colored wax, which gives her the opportunity to work in layers, like a composer creating multiple lines of music for different instruments. “The repeated process of adding layers, building and scraping allows me to explore patterns and formations,” she said, “and to create texture and rhythms which evolve into time sequences.”
In her spare time, Levy plays the djembe, an African hand drum that inspires her sense of rhythm and time in her paintings. Looking at her work, one can visually see the “time sequences” in her lines. “I am interested in rhythm, color and texture,” Levy said, “and I try to achieve a universal language in my paintings through repetition and minimal forms.”
This is another example of artistic “cross-training” (see Day 59), where artists in all mediums not only draw on each other’s influences but join together to bring forth powerful messages through their art.
Myriam Levy’s artwork can be viewed at: Myriam F. Levy
Description of the images included in this post:
Black Sun
Myriam Levy, Ontario, Canada
Encaustic
Incense Route
Myriam Levy, Ontario, Canada
Encaustic
The 365 Days Project
In 2012, Serena Kovalosky committed to writing an article a day for 365 days as an exploration into the lives of artists and the value of creative thinking in our society.
Experience the full evolution of the project! Click below to read the entire collection of articles.
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