**CLEARANCE - the last few paintings from this series have been marked down to $50 (from $75) - get yours now!**

This original watercolor is part of my Bach Project series. It is based on one of the beginner piano studies from Béla Bartók's "Mikrokosmos." I developed my own system for translating the music into color patterns, matching notes to colors, and rhythms to the circle. The outer ring shows the right-hand notes, and the inner ring shows the left-hand. I meticulously hand-painted each one, using vibrant watercolors.

The paper is 5"x7", and this ships unframed. The final photo shows what it would look like in a frame.

TITLE: Syncopation, No. 9
MATERIALS: watercolor on paper, based on music by Béla Bartók
SIZE: 5" x 7" unframed
YEAR: 2014
ARTIST: Melinda Steffy @melindasteffy

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ARTIST STATEMENT

Music and visual art typically occupy space and time in distinct ways.

Music is time-based, linear, heard in sequence from beginning to end, with variation and movement within.

Visual art—particularly traditional two-dimensional media such as painting or drawing—results in a static final product, which is spatial, immediate, perceived instantaneously, unchanging over time.

As both a visual artist and classically trained musician, I have long been fascinated by intersections between the disciplines. In the Bach Project series, I translate the linear, time-based format of music into spatial color patterns, so that what is normally heard in sequence can be seen all at once. Starting from masterworks by composers such as Bach and Bartók, my artwork blends color theory and music theory, revealing unexpected patterns that show the tonal and rhythmic complexity inherent in the music.

In my translation system, I have matched each of the 12 notes of the chromatic scale with a hue on the color wheel. Using mathematical constructs such as grids and pie charts, I plot the rhythms and note lengths. Rather than functioning like standard music notation, a blueprint which a musician may follow to produce a specific combination of sounds, my artwork omits technical information and reduces music to basic relationships of notes and rhythms.

The translations blend structure with fluidity, meticulous detail with the irregularity of hand-painted watercolors. They are made to look like a live performance sounds—full of precision, energy and variation.


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P.S. I do my best to get a good color approximation in my images, but please forgive minor color variation that may occur from photo to photo, device to device or when compared to the actual artwork.