Paintings a fusion of art and music

Art and music will be inextricably linked once again in the latest exhibition by artist Ann McLaren Hodgson.

Her work will be on display in the Mezzanine Gallery at Newark’s Millgate Museum from August 21 to October 3.

This is her fourth exhibition, called Geometrics 4, in which she paints an array of subjects using gold ink while listening to her favourite composers.

Ann, who lives in North Muskham, was born in East Yorkshire. She went to Chetham’s School of Music, Manchester, where she studied the violin.

She started painting around 20 years ago with no formal training, beginning by painting flowers, still life and local landscapes.

She has had several extremely successful solo Geometrics exhibitions in Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire, and her work is also shown and sold at various other locations in the UK including the NEC Birmingham, and Snape. Her work is found mainly in private collections in the UK and abroad.

In 1991 Ann moved to Kirklington. Having already discovered the work of abstract artist Wassily Kandinsky and Austrian symbolist painter Gustav Klimt she began experimenting with colour and form.

She soon discovered that, by painting to music, her work took on a more vibrant appearance with a sense of rhythm and movement.

Ann said: “I have been hugely privileged to carry out many commissions using an eclectic mix of music from The Beatles to Beethoven, Delibes to Mascagni, and a wide variety of other composers in between.

“Each painting represents a particular piece of music, my own interpretation of how I see and feel the music at the time.

“A copious amount of gold ink is often used to illuminate some of the more sombre and flatter colours, and to infuse an exotic intensity with varying degrees of texture. I have a particular fondness for Beethoven, Mahler, Shostakovich, Richard Strauss, Aerosmith and jazz.”

Following the exhibition at the museum, Geometrics 4 will transfer to The Buttermarket, Newark, until October 30.