Review: Painting Melody

Reviewer: Patricia Higgins

In the same manner that a viewer is asked to interpret a creative work, Mira Chorik invites the audience into her exhibition that is a dynamic reverie on the interplay of music and painting. Soulful vocals and soft acoustics create a sepia-tone canvas that is at once a performance, a curation, and a lyrical composition. In fact, Painting Melody builds on the tradition of ekphrastic poetry and uses language to respond to a piece of visual art.

With the transformative accompaniment of music, one can hear the audible words of an Indigenous elder narrating the myth behind a celebrated piece of art, or they might sense the distress of a Renaissance painter troubled by patriarchy. Painting Melody, at times, becomes a meditation on the soul and spirit of the tormented artist, or at least the artist plagued by discomfort, difficulties, anguish, or ignited by the need to leave an indelible mark. 

Chorik offers perceptive insights into the cultural and societal miasma of a series of artworks through an evocative expedition that begins subtly and grows with the same crescendo typically evident in any musical masterpiece. Each revelation follows the gentle or more stirring refrains of a musical set. In culmination, the audience becomes the art itself due to personal reflections and interactive components that foster a sense of convivial energy.