Supreme Celestial Color Mapping

Supreme Celestial Color Map was inspired by hearing Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra perform part of John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme at the Hollywood Bowl.

As I listened, I began imagining the music as color, shape and rhythm. Musical phrases became circles and repeated forms that answer one another across the painting. Rests became white spaces, giving the work room to breathe, while cooler blues and warmer oranges suggest different instruments trading phrases. Red appears more sparingly, punctuating the rhythm.

Like A Love Supreme, the painting moves through repetition, variation, tension and release, with an underlying structure that still leaves room for improvisation.