Harmonic Cube 10 of 70

Technique

Silk screenprint on Archival paper - Edition of 70.

Measurements

Unframed 700 x 1000mm.

About the artwork

One very early attempts, exploring Harmonic Cubes.

Harmonic Cubes screen print is recognised as belonging to Smither’s well known Harmonic Series exploring the relationship between sounds and colours. Michael’s Harmonic Series include works such as screen print Harmonic Chart, 1986, which has fetched up to NZD$12,000. Work also included in this collection of Harmonic Series are Colour Can be Sound, The Colours of Twelve Sounds, Harmonic Series, Notes and Crosses, Shape as Colour - Colour as Sound, Dawn Chorus, Albers Bellbird, A Childhood Game with Leaves, Harmonogram A F E, These works, including screenprints are held in private and public collections throughout New Zealand.

Precociously musical as a child, Smither recalls playing Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee on the piano at his primary school breakup in New Plymouth and enjoying playing Chopin at breakneck speed.

Smither has experienced the neurological phenomenon of synaesthesia, in which the person may register sounds as colours. Key childhood events stimulated his interest in the sensory overlaps between colour and music. One was seeing Walt Disney's 1940 film Fantasia for the first time, with its animated impressions of musical phrases, shown as lines and colours, jumping about on the screen in time with the classical soundtrack. From this point on the idea that sounds can be represented visually became a major fascination, one that Smither has returned to throughout his artistic career. At the same time, strong, vivid, and sometimes even garish or lurid colours have always been characteristic of his visual art production.

Michael Smither CNZM 2021.

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