“Sounds Like Green” is a new exhibition of paintings inspired by music, on view now at the Pop-Up space at Monson Arts. These works use color and form to create a non-representational depiction of a song. Each of these paintings was created in a single sitting, listening to the song on repeat, in about 120 minutes.
This is an assignment I give to my Painting I students in my classes at Southern Maine Community College and most of these were created alongside them as they created their own pieces. We first discuss artists like Wassily Kandinsky and Stuart Davis, and also the neurological condition called synesthesia. For people who have synesthesia, stimulation of one sense, such as hearing., leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in another sense. The most common form of synesthesia is colored hearing: sounds, music, or voices seen as colors.
The list of songs I used is below, along with the year the painting was made.
Click here to listen to the playlist on Spotify.
Anderson Paak, The Bird, 2017
Spoon, The Beast And Dragon Adored, 2017
Jose Gonzalez, This Is How We Walk On The Moon, 2016
Sebadoh, The Freed Pig, 2016
The Bad Plus, And Here We Test The Powers Of Our Observation, 2019
Brian Jonestown Massacre, Anenome, 2019
Primus, Over The Falls, 2015
Bow Wow Wow, Go Wild In The Country, 2018
Can, Vitamin C, 2018
The Fall, Totally Wired, 2015
Zero 7, Dreaming, 2015
Luna, Malibu Love Nest, 2016
George Harrison, Dark Horse, 2016
Vök, Waterfall, 2019
