ON MUSIC PAINTING
Music painting is a new performance art, combining live music with painting on canvas, made directly during a concert. This visual creation follows the musical movement and the colour of sound at the same time, producing a unique experience.

As part of the artist’s preparation, the musical score is studied in detail, and a ‘timeline’ of the music is created. From this timeline the artist develops a visual score, in order to rehearse simultaneously with the music. There is an overall design for when to paint what, and where on the final canvas, one might say ‘a choreography for the movements of the brush’. Significant moments in the dynamics of the music are highlighted, the work’s main themes and variants, the depth of the character and the overall nature of the piece. For the live performance, these preparations and studies are of course helpful but do not set the final work in stone. All that happens during performance itself is part of a moment, an instant. and as much as the artist aims to carry out her plan and to anticipate the gestures and movement, the final work always results from an experience based on musical and physical interactions, in what is an open form of art with an element of improvisation.

* Photo: Jānis Porietis Maryleen during the concert-performance of ‘The Rite of Spring’ by Stravinsky in collaboration with pianist Reinis Zarins, @Hanzas Perons, Riga, June 2023