“Just as the melody of voices delights the hearing, so the sight is entertained by the consonance of colours.”
Federico Barocci

Kevin Laycock’s recent paintings explore the structure of ‘Colour Symphony’, an orchestral work created in 1922 by the composer Arthur Bliss. The composer, who was known for creating music with unusual combinations of instrument and voice, had set out to explore the musical associations of colour. In these paintings, Kevin Laycock is returning the musical score to the colour that inspired it, exploring the qualities of colour in music and paint, finding a painted equivalent for the musical structures and sounds.

Kevin Laycock is an artist and a musician, and like many artists, philosophers and scientists before him, is fascinated by the mysterious relationship that seems to exist between music and colour. As early as 350 BC, Aristotle was seeking to create a system of colours which corresponded with a musical octave – a line of enquiry which would be explored by succeeding generations of artists and composers.

Sir Isaac Newton first analysed the coloured properties of sunlight in the 17th century, dividing the colour spectrum into seven - one for each note of a musical scale - uniting the phenomena of light and sound. The deeply contemplative ‘arrangements’ and ‘nocturnes’ by James McNeil Whistler in the 19th century demonstrate the ease with which musical terms can so eloquently describe the emotion and mood of painting. The physical and metaphorical impact of music and colour resonate in the conscious mind. Before a painting or whilst listening to music, it can be possible to make profound connections to areas of experience and knowledge that can be unexpected and deeply moving.

“The pleasing of colour symbolizeth with the pleasing of any single tone to the ear, and both these pleasures, that of the eye and that of the ear are but the effects of equality, good proportion and correspondence.”
Isaac Newton