‘All Roads Lead to Grace Jones’: Visual Artists on the Music That Moves Them in the Studio | art

FFrom Johannes Vermeer’s music lesson to Piet Mondrian’s homage to dance, with tiny ribbons of color moving across the canvas to a radically new rhythm, art and music have made natural companions. Peter Doig is now celebrating his love of music with an exhibition at London’s Serpentine that combines recent paintings with his favorite recordings played through an exceptional sound system. So we asked other contemporary artists what music means to them.

“I never get tired of Stevie Wonder songs in the key of life.”

Harold Ove
There was a lot of music in my house growing up. I have only recently come to appreciate its richness. My family is from Ghana, so there was a lot of highlife music, African rhythms, African gospel – now I think it’s amazing, but at the time it was just my father’s music. One of my uncles lived with us for a short time. He used to play Grace Jones a lot, and I grew up with Island Life The album that was the starting point for my covers series. I decided to re-show photos of performers from the 70’s and 80’s. All roads lead to Grace Jones.

Favorite music: I never get tired of songs in the key of life by Stevie Wonder. It’s a double album and the scope is extraordinary. I love As – the spirituality of it. It’s a journey.

“My life is so immersed in music.”

Ragnar Kjartansson
I remember going to school in Iceland in the winter as a teenager and listening to the Cure on my Walkman. Plainsong, the first song from their album Disintegration, goes: “It’s so cold, it’s like cold if you’re dead.” It was always fun when it was cold and I was trying on fancy clothes for school, listening to The Cure pump a wonderful sadness through me.

My studio next to the harbor in Reykjavik is a hangout for musicians. Sometimes I draw and my friends play Bach on the piano. My life is very steeped in music. I listen to it while I work, and while washing the dishes. I love listening to it with my teenage daughter, it’s great to have in the car. You can imagine what a happy moment it was for us when Olivia Rodrigo teamed up with The Cure’s Robert Smith.

favorite music: At the moment, it’s Sabrina Carpenter’s “Manchild,” but the piece that has most profoundly influenced my approach to art is Robert Schumann’s “Dichterliebe,” which deconstructs Romanticism at the height of Romanticism.

“I’m sad about the decline of radio.”

Chris Ofili
When I was working in my studio in Kings Cross in the late 1990s, playing music helped mask the urban soundscape. Now, in my studio in the hills in Trinidad, insect wings, raindrops and birdlife are my background music, so I have to choose what I play very carefully. Songs and vocal arrangements stimulate thoughts and emotions, and can also be colorful – all considerations when creating paintings.

I still mourn the decline of radio over the airwaves, when music filtered freely through small speakers, from passing vehicles, shops and cafés, and large sound systems. Radio DJs introduced me to a lot of great music. But just as a reproduction of Giotto’s fresco cannot be compared to seeing it in the Arena Chapel in Padua, some of the recorded music fails to capture the complexity of hearing it live. In Trinidad, hearing steel pan music performed by an open-air orchestra is unnerving.

Favorite music: These days, I listen to Salt in my studio. By intertwining the black experience, faith, love, spirituality, and mystery, their experimental albums ring true to me.

“Fireboy DML brought me back to life when I was photographing nudes”

Joey Labingo
I often listen to the same song over and over again, and I can always remember what I was listening to when I was doing a particular set of work. I was obsessed with Peru by Fireboy DML, released in 2021, when I was making my nudes in Lagos. It was the height of the pandemic and I had Covid. That song was really helpful. It would bring me back to life after lunch when I was crashing.

When I paint, what I’m looking for is a trance-like state where I don’t think about the music so much. So familiar songs are the most helpful. I’ll listen to new songs in the car, and once I have a level of familiarity, I can bring them into the studio where it feels more intimate. The songs I love on Spotify are what keep me going.

Favorite music: Now it’s “Sade’s Babyfather”, just for the rhythm and how relaxed it makes me feel. It’s old but new to me.

“I listen to people talk about how terrible the world is.”

Jeremy Diller
I think an artist’s relationship with music is no different than anyone else’s relationship. No matter how much we think we love music, we will never love it as much as the Chappelle Rowan fans I saw on TV at this year’s Reading Festival. Maybe we as adults want to return to that state of euphoria. I’ve worked with musicians a lot, but I rarely play music when I’m working at home because it’s too distracting. I tend to listen to people talking about how terrible the world is.

Favorite music: John Cage 4’33”. It helps me think.

“Self-esteem songs push me to be braver.”

Lindsey Mendick
Before I thought about being an artist, I wanted to be a singer. I was a huge Spice Girls fan. When I started listening to them when I was seven years old, I didn’t realize that the world wasn’t tilted in women’s favor. I just saw women taking over the world and being really strong. My first installation was probably a shrine I created in my childhood bedroom.

My best friend is a pop star. It’s called self-esteem. We met about 10 years ago in Sheffield; People said that we don’t like each other because we are strong female characters. Her songs are anthems for women who don’t fit into what they’re supposed to be. They push me to be braver. I use music to pick me up – often sad girls. Sometimes I’m singing really hard in my studio, and my assistant says, “It’s one of those songs.” these days…”

Favorite music: Beyoncé lemonade. On this album she sounds empowered, honest and raw.

“I was listening to the opera at full capacity.”

Tom Hamick
I was an artist in residence at ENO and Glyndebourne, so I got to listen to a lot of opera. There is a connection between the framing of opera – at night, with spotlights – and the way I capture drama, as a Romantic painter. I’m an expressionist painter, and you can choose color from the dark in the same way as in opera.

I used to listen to it in its entirety in my studio when I was out in a field by myself in Sussex. Now I’m in London and I don’t get to do that much. But I play music all the time.

Favorite music: Harvest Moon by Neil Young. This is the most romantic song you’ve ever heard, isn’t it?

“The mixtape became an integral part of my psyche.”

Harun Mirza
Listening to electronic music as a teenager was a huge turn on. I remember being at a house party. A few of us were tripping. As the night progressed, this 90-minute mixtape played on repeat, becoming an integral part of my psyche. I didn’t realize until later that it was the sound of electricity that I was fascinated by.

I used to call myself a composer because my installations and sculptures are sound-based and unfold visually and sonically across time and space. Then I was asked to propose a committee for the Royal College of Music, and they grilled me. I thought: “There are people who go to music school and train, and they can read and write music, and they really are We are Composers.” So I realized that wasn’t going to cut it.

Favorite music: My Path: Ceasefire Algorithm. Also, everyone in a Corgi family has to learn at some point.

“I filmed the Clash for their first hit.”

Carolyn Cohn
I’ve always lived in the streets that are liberated annually for Notting Hill Carnival, where British pop music is redefined. Early on, the soul-lifting rhythms were steel band calypso and soca. By the 1970s, massive reggae sound systems had become widespread. Naturally, carnival floats and DJ sound systems appear in paintings of urban landscapes.

In 1976, like Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon of the Clash, I was present at the carnival when young black men rioted. This anti-racism protest inspired the Clash’s song “White Riot,” which became their first hit with one of the early punk images of the band on the cover. For me, music and art are inseparable – I like to feel the rhythms of the music in my painting compositions. Choosing what music I want to play is part of my daily ritual.

Favorite music: This summer, Frederick Delius’s “Requiem for Life” was my favourite, as it plays continuously – wonderful sequences of massed choral colours.

“I love recording drips and scratches.”

Laure Provost
My house wasn’t full of music, but there was a lot of nature – the sound of the wind and the birds. Where does the music begin? Is it the birds chirping in the garden? Kettle sound getting crazier with boiling water? Music is everywhere, although there are moments when the music becomes more intense and you are more aware of it.

I come from the world of film and video, so sound is the material I work with. I remember Peter Cusack, one of my teachers years ago at St. Martins, saying, “You have to create your own sound.” I also work with musicians. I worked with people to create a catchy song that takes you running through fields, and to create the sound of a wave crashing into your face. I also like to record things like drips or scratches on my iPhone. The guts of my videos are intact. The image is the interface.

Favorite music: I Put a Spell on You by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. It’s a classic.

“I found my way back to art through music.”

Mark Leckie
When I went to art school, exposure to theory was a barrier to creativity. The way I found my way back into making art was through music. If I wanted to make new work, or I was thinking through ideas, I would start by listening to certain songs that I would use as an outline. I was thinking: “I want to bring up the same things that this song motivates me to do.”

What I love about music is that it’s democratic, but it also gives you access to something beyond your own experience. It can be local and pioneer. Why does art wrestle with this?

Favorite music: I was listening to Trip II the Moon (Part 2) by Acen before I made anything. It’s the most cheerful record I know, but its backing is kind of depressing.