Rosemary Duxbury

Links - collaborations
Visual art and music with artist Frances Marsh

Collaborations with art galleries

The music of Rosemary Duxbury is increasingly being used in a variety of contexts. As well as being performed in the concert hall, and recorded on CD, various artists are using her music in different ways and the music is used in art galleries in particular. Read more....

Visual art and music

My collaboration with artist Frances Marsh: A synthesis of sound & light.

“I first came across the work of Frances Marsh when I was shown round her house by her husband. He and Frances were about to move out from there but just before leaving it, I was taken to their old, imposing manor in Gloucestershire which was empty apart from these astonishing veil paintings, one hung in every bare room. It was a ‘window in time’ to see so many of her paintings in this context and the effect was extraordinary. Each room felt like a ‘portal of experience’. As I looked at each painting, I felt transported to another world, as if I was literally taken into the painting, then could travel through it - giving me a real feeling of flight. I didn’t meet Frances until later, but that encounter with the paintings made a very special introduction...

A synthesis of sound and light
I met Frances a party at Upper Holcombe, another beautiful Gloucestershire manor, and struck up a friendship. From talking we realised that we worked in a very similar manner - allowing the source of content to express its own intelligence. I allow the sound, and Frances the light, to come through and watch the composition take its own structure in layers, rather than impose our own will. I am always amazed that with this process there is so much inherent ‘structure’ and ‘form’. I would also say there is another parallel:  I feel the sound I work with is connected to light, and Frances paintings of light are connected to sound.

Writing about her creative process, Frances says: “I am using a veiling technique as a means of allowing the light to shine through. As I go deeper into the colours, allowing them to inform me, and intuitively following their lead, I have become aware of being guided by a consciousness far beyond my own, where the outcome is no longer a result of my own intention.

In surrendering to this guidance, I experience myself as painter and simultaneously as witness to the picture unfolding before my eyes, where something new and unexpected is always being revealed, and which, upon completion, seems to carry a vibration and life-force of its own”

Choosing a painting
I decided I would like to buy an original painting quite early on, so visited Frances at her new home. The day I arrived, she had just come home from the framers with a freshly finished painting which was standing in her kitchen. She had no idea I had arrived to discuss choosing a painting. There was no need to even choose which of her works I’d like - my painting was already displayed there in front of me, having arrived the day I had - I just knew that this was ‘my’ painting. One of those moments of serendipity.“

I chose one of Frances’ paintings to be the cover of my first recording, put out on tape; “Awakenings”.  I also had some photographs of her work, one of which I kept on my desk throughout the time I was putting together my first CD ‘On Wings of Light’. I’d been wondering what cover image to use, then seeing this little photograph that had been with me throughout the process,  it dawned on me - this was the cover image and it had been with me the whole time!

Soul’s Journey
With Frances’ work having a strong resonance for me and my music, the collaboration was taken a step further with a project called “Soul’s Journey”. Dance, video, photography and music were all combined to make a live performance at the Lotus Foundation in London. Kathy Hinde took Frances’ images along with photographs by Henry Carsch, whilst simultaneously blending video of live dance (which was happening in the garden outside) and projected the combined effect onto a large white wall behind the piano and cello, as Gozde Tiknaz (cello) and I gave a performance of ‘Atma’s Flight’”

Frances currently divides her time between Gloucestershire and Cornwall in England. She is reproducing her paintings as giclee prints and her work can be seen and bought at www.francesmarsh.co.uk

other collaborations

photography and music

painting and music

ice-skating and music

poetry and music

music and healing and contemplation

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