Performance Painting: Modern Art Oxford.

On the cusp between free improvisation and visual art, this collaboration between myself, Roger Redgate and Emmanuel Lorien Spinelli explores the complex relationship between painting, sound objects , installation and music.

This one hour long improvisation took form organically with the imaginative and spontaneous then director of Modern Art Oxford Michael Stanley. He contacted me while I was in Rome and suggested that I devised a performance which took over the whole of the upper gallery. I wanted to recreate the immersive experience of experiencing sound as colour, but also wanted to highlight how the painting could also be part of the sound too. I had already worked with Roger several times and he suggested that we collaborate with Emmanuel Lorien Spinelli. I will never forget us meeting with  Emmanuel at the station expecting a large set up, of keyboards etc. However all he had was a small ragged suitcase and a computer. I later found out that the case contained musical toys which he then amplified sometimes setting them off into the audience. This created an extra exciting complex and dramatic element to the performance as a whole and I have since worked with Emmanuel many times.

Between us it felt as though we were exploring new sound worlds and possibilities.

Photographs by Sisi Burn