There’s that well-used line about actors being frustrated musicians and vice-versa, though when reality hits, the results are often car crash. There will be those who hail Mick Jagger’s turn in Freejack as a masterclass, think Madonna shows real promise in Body of Evidence and see Mariah Carey’s Glitter debacle as some kind of meta commentary on life itself but they are in the minority. Actors ‘having a go at music’ can be similarly wayward – Steven Seagal is yet to win a Grammy; Russell Crowe has not been deafened by calls for encores and Johnny Depp does it for the free drinks…and things. More intriguing are those who look to venture into the world of visual arts as painters and sculptors, as well as those artists who look to capture the seemingly impossible – the effect of music on canvas.
Russian visual artist, Dmitry Art, now based in Poland, is completely self-taught – like one of those old time blues musicians who can just pick up a guitar and start playing as if it was second nature. Dmitry’s artistic raison d’être is to try to capture fleeting emotions with a few swishes of his brush. Not simply overarching emotions but those very personal, intangible, ethereal moments we get when our tongue hits an ice cream on a boiling hot day; a dream you can’t remember the details of but retain how it made you feel; the sound of the crackle of static before a record kicks in.
Sounds Acrylic on canvas, 40x30x2cm, 2014
Jazz, Acrylic on canvas, 2017
Dmitry’s paintings under the heading ‘music mood‘ are remarkable in capturing the experience of music and how it affects us. His use of paint almost mimics the explosion of synapses in “Sounds” yet also captures the space between sound and silence. Likewise, the fractured shards of glass effect of “Jazz” shows both the individual chaos of individual notes and instrumentation coming together in a overall effect which makes perfect sense. “Addicted by Music” somehow shows the intense experience of listening to music with just the angle of the subject’s neck, with no facial expressions required.
Addicted by Music, Acrylic on canvas, 2020
You could compare the nature of Dmitry’s creations to those of Don Van Vliet, better known in musical circles as Captain Beefheart. His faux–naïf works were expressionistic and abstract yet captured a feeling of his Mojave desert surroundings and movement without any real sophistication. It is telling that Van Vliet’s music was similarly unconventional yet has transcended time and tastes to remain as vital and incisive as when it was made – true art will always last.
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