This is the final image a tribute painting to the music of Blind Melon, called No Rain. What is different about this artwork is that I did not follow my normal flow pattern for the music: horizontally from left to right. Rarely does it move vertically, which this artwork does. In No Rain the music flows left to right starting with the top left panel. It then hops over to the top right panel. The music flow then moves, left to right across the larger bottom panel. In order to improve the logic of this flow I decided to physically mount each panel at a different depth, creating a step movement in this work.
The following side image shows these changes in canvas depth:
I did not have to do it this way. An alternative design, typical of this art, would have been one longer horizontal combination of panels. I could have also created a horizontal stepped look (actually never considered) to this work following such examples as this years Birthday Painting, and last years Up on The Roof. I choose neither of these paths, and at first I could not remember my original thinking about this artwork. Then I remembered: if you listen to the music you will hear a series of short pauses after the word ‘escape.’ What it came down to was I wanted to create an artwork without displaying these stops in the music flow. And yet I wanted to keep up the logical movement of the music across this artwork. I realized I could reach these goals by placing each ‘escape’ on a different level.
It all came down to this reasoning: what convinced me to paint this music was the word, ‘escape.’ I wanted this artwork to focus entirely on that repeated word, and so I eliminated the rests. The pauses are actually still there, it is in the change in-depth between the three canvases. I accomplished what the music does, but in my way. I think any viewer who sees this work and says that word three times, will understand and find their own meaning in this artwork. I know I did.
Scott Von Holzen
aRT iN mUSIC 