Artist Interview: Ali Barker | Cass Art

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Ali Barker is a modern day summary artist dependent in Liverpool.  She was the winner of Merseytravel’s ‘Art on the Network’ level of competition in 2011, with two of her skyline murals of Liverpool and Wirral forever set up on the panelling at possibly finish of the Queensway (Birkenhead) Tunnel.  She held her to start with solo clearly show ‘Four-Dimensional Colour’ in 2016, and accomplished her MA in Wonderful Artwork in 2019.

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Ali will work with a fixed palette of twelve colors to stand for the colors she perceives via her ordeals of the phenomenon of sound-colour synaesthesia – when listening to new music, she perceives every notice of the musical scale as a precise color. She is impressed and motivated by these activities, drawing on them and her musical background (she performs the violin and the viola) to create her paintings. Starting off from her perceptions while listening to certain pieces and/or from the prepared music, her method interprets melodies and excerpts into colourful paintings, ranging from gestural works to geometric styles.

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Hello Ali, many thanks so considerably for using the time to communicate to us, to start with could you explain to us a very little bit about your journey as an artist?

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Yes, of program. My artistic journey is a minor unconventional, as I did not review artwork at faculty – I had to pick both art or music to in shape in with 3 science topics, so I selected new music! My initial degree and career were being science-based mostly, but, in my spare time, I ongoing to make artwork and pay a visit to galleries and exhibitions, as well as engage in in neighborhood orchestras.

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In 2009 I made a decision to analyze A-degree art part-time, which is when I began to discover the connections amongst new music and artwork. A handful of a long time later, immediately after 20 decades in my prior career, I left that guiding to concentrate on my artwork. I threw myself into finding out Foundation Art and Design and style for a year, which enabled me to experiment with connecting my synaesthesia, my musical qualifications, and my artwork. After a couple of decades of establishing my practice on my individual, I examined section-time for a observe-based MA in Great Art, which provided a framework to comprehend what is most critical to me in my practice: my private experiences of synaesthesia and of playing and listening to music, and the processes I use to generate my perform.

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Your get the job done is carefully tied to your expertise of synaesthesia when listening to songs.  How do the appears translate into colors and shapes, is it fairly literal to you or do you get anything unique from every single different piece of audio?

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The colours I understand are normally the similar for distinct notes of the musical scale and they are the commencing level for my artworks. What I ‘see’ is hard to explain in terms (quite a few synaesthetes find it tough to describe their ordeals) but could be described as fleeting perceptions of vibrant colours in my mind’s eye. I never look at my synaesthesia to be a ‘condition’, somewhat an ‘addition’ to my day to day lifetime. The patterns and shapes in my work are not literal reproductions of my encounters I attract on my musical qualifications and use the specific colours I perceive as the stimulus for my artworks in response to certain items of music. I am typically affected by the audio I am rehearsing/undertaking, as properly as the broad array of music I hear to, or music preferred by a consumer for a fee.

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The course of action I utilize to build and build the work tends to require two techniques of doing the job, which I refer to as expressive and geometric. The expressive will work are spontaneous, involving listening to the music and putting down paint in the colors perceived, layering the different colored marks and/or manipulating the paint on the surface in reaction to the condition or truly feel of the new music. In contrast, the geometric functions can take months or months to build as a result of drawings and sketches before staying executed as a closing painting. These translational paintings use the colours I understand in geometric designs symbolizing excerpts or melodies from the penned audio. Lately my geometric operates (this kind of as the two Mahler paintings in my Cass Artwork exhibition) have been exploring the visual interweaving of two or much more musical themes.

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You have mentioned your function is extremely substantially course of action-pushed, but are there any artists or actions that you have found to be an impact on your art exercise?

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It was a portray by Wassily Kandinsky (also thought to have been a synaesthete) that very first sparked my desire in studying the connections concerning new music and artwork: he painted Impact III (Concert) in 1911 as his response to listening to a concert of new audio by the composer Arnold Schoenberg. It was this research through my A-stage research which assisted me to understand that my ordeals were synaesthesia, and to begin to place down the colours I understand in paint and define my musical colour scale. I feel in the early phases of establishing my practice, several early 20th century artists influenced my get the job done, like Kandinsky, Paul Klee (also a violinist), and the Australian artist Roy de Maistre (who experimented with translating total pieces of songs into color from 1919 onwards). Imagining about additional modern artists, Bridget Riley’s sequences of coloured stripes, and the significant, colourful paintings of the late John Hoyland (also born in Sheffield!) have additional normally motivated my paintings. Gerhard Richter’s geometric patterns of colored squares, as very well as his manipulation of paint on a floor, have also motivated both of those of my ways of operating – equally, I don’t sense I want to prohibit myself to only doing the job in one particular way, I have a tendency to switch amongst the two for durations of time.

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What kinds of elements would you say are integral to your operate?

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I use precise paint colors, primarily straight from the tube to continue to keep them thoroughly clean and bright – my perceptions of colour are brilliant, so I check out to reproduce the colours as closely as probable and restrict making use of the duller colours of mixed paint. Just one colour I understand I would describe as a shimmering purple-brown, so after significantly experimentation, I settled on making use of copper paint to signify that take note. I mostly use Liquitex paints, as they can offer me with the variety of distinct colors I have to have – my go-to paint is Delicate Physique, but I have also utilised their Spray Paint, Acrylic Ink, and Acrylic Gouache, as effectively as a wide range of their Qualified mediums to develop the regularity and translucency/opacity I want for distinct items. When doing work on canvas, sturdy stretcher bars are essential – the Cass Artwork stretcher bars work properly for me, come in a large range of dimensions, are simple to set collectively and are strong ample not to warp, which is crucial for my geometric function!

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Your murals for the Art on the Community opposition are an legendary component of the Merseyside landscape.  What is it like to have your function as a permanent public artwork set up?

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I was a little bit confused when I received the levels of competition! It was through my portion-time A-amount scientific tests, before I’d taken the plunge to go away my past vocation. My electronic types were being applied by the firm who created all the panels for the tunnel refurbishment job they display-printed and fired the colours in vitreous enamel on to the stainless-steel supports. They had been mounted in excess of 10 several years ago but should really very last a very long time. My original Liverpool Composition and Wirral Composition paintings are, understandably, not for sale, but are still out there as confined-version prints. I reside on the Liverpool side of the Mersey, but have various connections to Wirral, specially through new music, so I get to journey previous my artwork very routinely! 

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At last, what is in shop for you for the rest of 2022? Just about anything you can allow us in on?

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In October, I will be Artist in Home for the Wirral Arts Pageant 2022. I’ll be performing with an orchestra and some other musical groups who are accomplishing at the festival, generating artwork in reaction to some of the parts they strategy to enjoy in their concerts and then exhibiting the concluded paintings at the concert events. In simple fact, some of the works on paper in my current exhibition at Cass Artwork Liverpool have been manufactured during past year’s competition.

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Normally, I am content to be typically building new perform this calendar year, reflecting on and continuing from concepts that arose from my 6-7 days solo exhibition and residency project in an artist-led area in Liverpool last summertime. I am also commencing to glimpse in the direction of some likely exhibition alternatives in 2023 and 2024. There are always team exhibitions to apply for all through the 12 months, so I’ll see what else arrives up!

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Feeling Impressed?

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Ali’s exhibition ‘Musicals to Mahler’ is at Cass Art Liverpool right until 17th June 2022.  You can see extra of Ali’s function on her website alibarker.com  Be sure to observe her on Facebook and Instagram @alibarkerart

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