Deanna Musgrave

ARTIST STATEMENT
I am an artist interested in the interdisciplinary relationships between the arts, that they can be intermingled into an all encompassing art form. I draw inspiration from Richard Wagner’s theory of the Gesamtkunstwerk (the total artwork) and R. Murray Schafer’s Theatre of Confluence. I seek elements in the arts that speak of universal connections which, I perceive in the synthesis of the arts, as well as, spiritual concepts surrounding energy, such as the Asian notion of “qi” or the biblical perception of “breath.”

In Wassily Kandinsky’s written work “Concerning the Spiritual in Art” he identifies a unifying vibration connecting humanity. I express this concept by translating music into a visual form. Through my interest in artists such as Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Joseph Turner, or James Whistler, I have found that one of the most effective ways to visually suggest music is to parallel its’ audible characteristics to the formal qualities of art. Color is synonymous with timbre or harmony, dynamics with tone, brushwork with rhythm, or composition with arrangement. In my most recent work, I have become interested in merging natural musical forms, early musical notation (such as neumes), and elements of architecture to create subconscious musical environments or landscapes. In my most recent exhibit, I have created a series of paintings inspired by music in reflection of nature such as “Arias,” Claude Debussy’s “La Cathedrale Engloutie” (Sunken Cathedral), and Gustav Mahler’s song-symphony “Das Lied von der Erde” (The Song of the Earth).

My artwork does not attempt to create music in the head of the viewer but, rather, imply a subconscious experience of music or of the “breath.”

Deanna Musgrave