“A painting is music you can see and music is a painting you can hear.”
Miles Davis
Artist Statement
I paint music. I see music as an entity in itself, a separate life force. As a musician I hear all the layers, the rhythm, the style of music and as an artist I use paint, form, colour, texture to capture the emotional essence of the music that I hear.
I want you to see what I hear.
At music college I was taught the art of listening to the multiple layers in a piece of music. As a musician I can listen forensically to all the textures of orchestration and identify how they construct an emotional response in the listener. I have been taught to identify and then replicate stylistic differences between composers and time periods. I can listen in three dimensions whilst also identifying the historical markers of each piece and I use this knowledge to build an emotional picture which I translate into paint.
I am actively engaged in translating the ‘art of listening’ into art itself and documenting the rhythm, personality, flow, and texture evoked in a piece of music. I have synesthesia. When listening to music I can open a door in my mind and I find a world of different colours. These colours also then interact with structure and form in the same way as pitch interacts with rhythm and orchestration, to create an artwork which captures the music itself in all its complexity.
I paint abstract reactions to the music as it moves me emotionally. The resulting pieces are vibrant, moody, electric, colourful, textural. They differ greatly depending on the style of each composer. Mozart and Shostakovich demand to be as different in art as they are in music. Anything less than this approach would not be faithful to the music they represent.
My years of playing in orchestra has given me a visceral connection with music which is akin to landscape painters painting “plein air”. I have spent many hours immersed in the sound of the orchestra. This personal connection and physical experience of music is what I strive to capture in my art. So just as a portrait artist captures more than the lines on someone’s face but digs deeper to surface their personality, my art moves beyond documenting the notes and chords to reveal the journey of emotions that course through the composer, performers, my ears and finally to the paint on the canvas.
Biography
Kirsty Matheson has been described as an “artistic polymath” by Tom Service on BBC Radio 3, who called her art a “jaw-dropping kaleidoscope of images”.
Kirsty is an abstract painter who lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland. As a classically trained musician, she hears the many layers of emotions contained in a piece of music and transmits the style, movement, rhythm, and dynamism into an abstract piece of art.
In February 2021, Kirsty set herself the challenge to create 100 paintings about 100 pieces of music in 100 days. The 100 Days of Music as Art Project was followed by an online audience on Twitter and Instagram and created a loyal following that not only commented on the work but fought to purchase each work as they were released. This culminated in all one hundred paintings being sold by the final day of the project. Kirsty was interviewed on Music Matters on BBC Radio 3 by Tom Service about the experience. In 2022 Kirsty had her first solo exhibition of her collection of work on Martyn Bennett's album, Grit. These eleven paintings were exhibited at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall as part of the Celtic Connections Festival. As part of Celtic Connections, Kirsty held a presentation and discussion on her work with the late Rab Noakes. Her exhibition and work were featured on the BBC news program Reporting Scotland. In 2023 Dunedin Consort commissioned Kirsty to paint music for their entire 2023/24 Season which was used in their brochure and for all posters and programs. In the same year, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra commissioned Kirsty to paint a brand new piece by the young Scottish composer, Jay Capperauld 'The Origin of Colour' written for the opening concert of the SCO 50th anniversary season. 2024 will see Kirsty's new 21 paintings of Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire shown as part of the Hebrides Ensemble concerts of the work. These paintings were commissioned by the Hebrides Ensemble and will be displayed at the Spitalfields Festival in London and the Glasgow Cathedral Festival in Scotland. Kirsty has gone on to be commissioned to create CD artwork, present education workshops and hold private shows in her studio in Glasgow. She has completed many commissions and strives to work with clients to take the work to a deeper, personal level for each commission. Kirsty has collectors both in the UK and internationally. Kirsty’s goal is to enrich the creative experience an audience hears when listening to music and to enrich the experience of looking by exploring the connection with what is heard.