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Ellen Hackl Fagan
Ellen Hackl Fagan, CSG_M-2, 2011, Enamel, Ink, Acrylic Paint 12 x 12 x 2 inches

2011

About the Item

ColorSoundGrammar Ellen Hackl Fagan There is a long history of sound/color synaesthesia work, from Isaac Newton’s color organ to Alexander Scriabin’s “Prometheus,” but not much work on color to sound synaesthesia. As a painter, it seems natural to ask whether colors have aural equivalents. Can these relationships be identified and used in a way that an audience can understand and enjoy? Can the experience of this blended language affect one's daily life? Research suggests synaesthesia is a latent human capacity. Fagan's goal is to find ways for people to (re-)discover and use it to extend their experiential language. These artistic questions have been the subject of three ongoing projects: the ColorSoundGrammar Game, the Reverse Color Organ, and Community Sing. The ColorSoundGrammar Game The ColorSoundGrammar Game (CSGG) is a sound-to-color matching exercise. Participants match colors to the notes of a (Western) musical scale or the ABC Song melody. Over 600 people have made color-sound maps since 2007. Photos of the precise color maps inform my color palettes when painting as well as provide CSGG data for tracking aural equivalents to color. Ellen Hackl Fagan's paintings pair sounds in very primary musical compositions, to colors, through crowd sourced information gathered from her ColorSoundGrammar Game installations. These visualizations of the Do Re Mi musical scale, or the ABC Song double as a form of portraiture, depicting an individual’s color-sound map. The image to sound association is enhanced in the paintings by adding motifs, such as solid shapes, to depict the substantive quality of a note's sound. CSG_M-2 was created from data gathered from ColorSoundGrammar Game results in 2010. Here, the viewer paired sounds from the ABC Song melody to colors. Ellen Hackl Fagan is the inventor of The Reverse Color Organ and The ColorSoundGrammar Game, two projects that enable viewers to synaesthetically explore the sound of colors. She also is the owner of ODETTA gallery, in Brooklyn, New York. She earned a Masters of Fine Arts Degree in Painting and Interdisciplinary Media in 2005 from Hartford Art School, CT. In 2004, Fagan became a RADIUS artist through the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, and received a grant through the Stamford Museum & Nature Center for her Reverse Color Organ project. Fagan exhibits her work extensively throughout New England and New York City.
  • Creator:
    Ellen Hackl Fagan (1960, American)
  • Creation Year:
    2011
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 12 in (30.48 cm)Width: 12 in (30.48 cm)Depth: 2 in (5.08 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
    This painting is on clay board and is painted on the sides of the cradle mounting, so it is self framed.
  • Gallery Location:
    Darien, CT
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU17224424181
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