THE COLOR OF SOUND, THE SOUND OF COLOR
HOLLIS JEFFCOAT & KAT EPPLE

Original Exhibit Dates: February 2 to February 27, 2016

Admiration and respect for each other's work is what brought painter Hollis Jeffcoat and musician/composer Kat Epple together for our 51st exhibit, "The Color of Sound; The Sound of Color."

It was Color, however, that spurred them to collaborate, and the individual work created by each artist is what makes this exhibit so unusual.

In this co-inspired exhibition, Hollis Jeffcoat embraces her synesthesia and paints Kat Epple's music. For Jeffcoat each note and chord evokes a specific color creating a composition as she listens, which she later applies to canvas.

Epple, who often sees color as she plays, translates Jeffcoat's paintings into musical compositions.

Hollis Jeffcoat has works in many prominent collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum and Pierre Matisse Collection. She began her extensive career at the New York Studio School with some of the great painter/teachers of the time and lived, painted and exhibited in Paris, Montreal and NYC. It was in France when she was 24 and living with her mentor and life-long friend Abstract Expressionist, Joan Mitchell, that Jeffcoat learned not everyone had synesthesia as she and Mitchell did. Synesthesia is a neurological phenomenon in which the stimulation of one sense leads to the automatic, involuntary experience of another sense. For Jeffcoat sounds, along with numbers, letters, smells and many other things, are seen in colors. It was not until 2014 however, that Jeffcoat consciously employed this gift to create her first sound-inspiring painting, "Sound of the Osprey." In this exhibit, Jeffcoat has 10 paintings based on sound and Epple has three new compositions.

Kat Epple, a Peabody, Edward R Murrow and Emmy Award-winning composer and flutist has released 30 albums worldwide. Her compositions include a variety of musical styles, from World Music, New Age and Jazz to Metal, Orchestral Film Scores, Native and Ambient music. She has produced film scores for National Geographic, Nova, CNN, Carl Sagan and many other renown television soundtracks. Epple performed live music with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and for her friend, legendary visual artist, Robert Rauschenberg's art openings around the world.