Artist research

Lucienne Day

"Day drew on inspiration from other arts to develop a new style of abstract pattern-making".
Like Delia she was a pioneer but of pattern rather than music. She was also active in the 1950s and 1960s.

This image was created in 1953. This image is very logical and diagrammatic and well planned. I can almost imagine that this is what the inside of Delia Derbyshire's head would look like. This reminds me of my oscillator idea because 1) it is almost like a map/physics circuit 2) it includes similar shapes to the outputs of the oscillator.

This image was created in 1951. This is a more colourful pattern which I can see similarities to paper cut outs in the use of shape and colour here. It is still all interconnected with lines mapping a journey.

If I was to persue a similar route with my final pieces I want to avoid a repetitive pattern. The nature of Delia's work may have some repetitive aspects but holistically the music she creates isn't repetitive-interesting and unusual.



Pat Bradbury

His work is really bright and colourful!

This is a very playful colourful image. It is using simple shapes but with added texture which makes it visually interesting. His shapes are also not perfect. They are definitely hand crafted.

This looks a lot like the sketchbook work I have begun producing which is colourful paper cut outs on a colourful background. 

Karel Martens

He is a dutch graphic designer also producing work in the 1950s. Although they are prints they would transfer well to paper-cuts and the first image is similar to the turning wheels i made. They also use overlapping bright colours which creates a sense of fluidity. Importantly he has created these images on the background of grids and charts! The fluid shapes contrast largely with the very precise and important stock.

Wassily Kandinsky
The idea of music appears everywhere in Kandinsky's paintings. He believed shades resonated with each other to produce visual 'chords' and had an influence on the soul. He has a hyper-Romantic language of musical and sensual connections.

"Our hearing of colours is so precise ... Colour is a means of exerting a direct influence upon the soul. Colour is the keyboard. The eye is the hammer. The soul is the piano with its many strings. The artist is the hand that purposely sets the soul vibrating by means of this or that key. Thus it is clear that the harmony of colours can only be based upon the principle of purposefully touching the human soul."

He basically created a visual language which portrayed music in his own abstract way...

 He has used lots of traditional/geometric shapes but has overlaid them, almost collages.

Jack Coulter

He has a disability (if you can call it that) where "I can hear the colours" and therefore translates sound to colour - Chromesthesia/Synesthesia.

He doesn't use the traditional paintbrush to create his images, rather uses sticks, glass, knives and his hands.

 This image is supposed to represent Cancer. To me it does seem like all of the gross images see on cancerous lungs etc... His use of colour here really does portray what I imagine the inside of the body is like.

Ruth Allen Prints

I guess these are screen prints. However I can see clearly how these would transfer well with paper cut outs and perhaps her initial stages of crafting and designing used paper cut outs. I really like how there is one block colour which doesn't quite align in the background but with lots of gestural loose detail on top. I also really like that she has left some negative space within the image. I think she is important in my development as she used continuous line drawings to add detail to simple shapes in the background.