By sight and by sound our senses are enlightened by particle waves moving through the air. We only perceive a small fraction of the infinite range in wavelengths, both sonic and visual. At places hard to predict in those parallel spectrums, odd and beautiful resonance plays between our eyes and our ears. I address this interplay in my art.
Through a variety of media I have found ways to express music visually. I paint rhythms and fill the beats with color. I capture a measure of music in a Polaroid frame, and concoct an entire score of music from a group of the pictures. I drape string as a waterfall, placing each thread in a choreographed path to describe both the flow of the water and the shape of the music. I have laid cut stone in precisely placed rhythms and I have cut mirrors and wood to emulate the beat of a song. My work focuses on the rhythms of nature and how we connect to them, both through our eyes and our ears.
As a musician I have many times attempted to explain rhythm or tone, but how? As an artist I have been pressed to explain color or hue, but what is there to say? In my experience all of these ideas are interconnected. One can’t have a rhythm without a hue, nor a tone without some corresponding color. And so I make art about it. To this end I have sought many means. For each idea I draw on my experience both as a musician and artist to deal with the inextricable rhythms of sight and sound.
Fritz Horstman
February, 2007