Musical Abstractions

The series I entitle “Musical Abstractions” includes my “Let’s Go Twist Again” diptych that I will be exhibiting in the  2024 ART’IN LIMA International Contemporary Art Exhibition in Ponte de Lima, Portugal.  These two pieces, that will be on view at the Museu dos Terceiros, were conceived in homage to “The Twist,” the song that made waves in the early 60’s and to which I danced as a young child … as a teenager … as a young adult … and play every time I gather with friends to enjoy favorite songs.  Chubby Checker’s reinterpretation of Hank Ballard’s song made Rock ‘n’ Roll history and served me a base for creation.

 

• Let’s Go Twist Series

 

My “Let’s Go Twist” pieces, dated 2009, first exhibited at the Madrid Photo Fair that year, and are representative of how music has always been inspirational for me. The Russian painter Kandinsky was also a keen lover of music and believed that the stimulation of one sense leads to the stimulation of another. I believe this also to be true for me.  In a humble attempt to approach music as did Kandinsky, I looked for objects that, suspended in space, evoked such a highly spirited song and dance as “The Twist.” I chose colors that triggered my own desire to sing and twist as freely as a child.  I chose a visual effect that could evoke the effect of grafitti, an urban expression from which the song and dance originated: the inner city and Chubby Checker’s observing how ghetto boys moved to the rhythm of Hank Ballard and the Midnighters first performances of “The Twist.” The result: a musical abstraction.

 

 

• Colorful Music

 

My abstractions, that are creations that use the photographic process as a tool but that are essentially “painterly”, are compositions that are sometimes extracted from real musical scenarios.  In the pieces I call “Colorful Music”, I take light projections during indoor concerts and transform shape and color into “visual pieces of music.”  An inverted tent overhanging musicians becomes a flower, a scent, a sunny moment, a moment of happiness. 

 

 

• Tunnels of Color and Music 

 

These tunnels and photographic inspirations are drawn from artists such as James Turrell, Dan Flavin, Olafur Eliasson and Carlos Cruz-Diez.  I am strongly drawn to the luminosity and intensity of the colors and forms they create, and by the mesmerizing effect of the special transformations these kinds of artists produce.  Their work draws me to seek and create my own tunnels of color.  Then, in these tunnels of color, I hear music and can only aspire to my viewers’ ability to hear their own music while contemplating one of these pieces.  

 

• Games and Toys

 

The games and toys I played with as a child re-emerge in my photography and form part of my “Musical Abstractions”.  Each piece sings a song to me for these compositions and abstractions stem from playful and musical moments of my life.   Mexican “piñatas” swung many times in my parent’s garden in Mexico and mariachi music played constantly.  Thus, these colorful and playful forms that I link to childhood happiness are subject of my photographic abstractions.  Other inspirational objects I use include confetti, pick up sticks, jumping ropes, balloons and cut paper. Basically, these photographic compositions utilize the compendium of objects with which I played as a child.