Often I walk towards a gallery thinking “What on earth is this going to be about?” If I have done no pre-reading and am not familiar with the topic or artist that is the best I can do. Approaching the Drill Hall Gallery in the rain today that was exactly what was going on in my head.
What a powerful surprise awaited me.A colour and sound explosion in vital and energetic forms is in that building right now.These artists were intrigued with the possibility of representing sound visually. Some screen savers on early computers tried that and must have been influenced by these artists.
At heart this exhibition straddles two sets of artists past and contemporary that use painting, film, light and music To me the star of the show is Ludwig Hirschfield Mack. There is lots of his work and it is exciting, colourful and playfully musical. Of the modern group Cathy Blanchflower’s marvelous musical looking large flowing works are a delight. John Aslanidis has other great interwoven images that cry out a musical background.
Gallery Three has a wonderful video musical creation on multiple screens that are immersive and invigorating to sit amongst. It has been created by an audio-visual performance group called Botborg. The performance is called Neural Luminance Amplifier.
Below are a few pictures and the hand out. I was surprised by how exciting I found the art on the wall and all the other forms of representing music visually.
