Silence and Space
Some paintings begin with an image. Others begin with an idea. For me, many begin with sound.
I am beginning a new body of work inspired by the album Silence and Space, a collaboration between R. Carlos Nakai and Will Clipman.
Released in 2025, the album grew from a performance recorded inside The TANK Center for Sonic Arts in Rangely, Colorado, a remarkable space known for its extraordinary natural reverberation.
This new series takes the entire album as its starting point rather than responding to a single track. It becomes a journey through ten pieces, from Starbirth, Elemental Fusion and Light and Sound through to On Our Way and the extended 56 minute Silence and Space.
For me, this is not about attempting to visually describe the music. It is about listening deeply and allowing the music to enter the process.
Listening, Intuition and the Act of Painting
🔹- Framed fine art canvas print of “Silence and Space” can be purchased here.
Music has been the anchor for perhaps 98% of my artwork over the years. I listen repeatedly while I work, allowing sounds, rhythms, pauses and spaces to gradually find their way into colour, texture, mark and movement.
The same approach continues here.
I bring everything I have learned through a lifetime of making art into the sandbox/studio, but once the work begins, knowledge has to make room for intuition.
Concentration becomes important. So does patience.
I allow the painting to develop without knowing exactly where it will take me, responding to what appears rather than trying to impose a predetermined image upon it.
With this first work from the series, the pale atmospheric field, delicate textures and almost imperceptible marks sit against the stronger horizontal bands towards the bottom of the composition.
There is a sense of stillness, but also movement beneath that stillness. Layers appear, disappear and reappear, creating a surface that asks to be looked at slowly.
That idea of slowing down feels particularly appropriate to Silence and Space, as it did with Elemental Fusion, and Inward Journey
The album itself was recorded in an environment where sound becomes part of the architecture. The TANK's extraordinary reverberation allows Nakai's Native American flute and Clipman's percussion to expand into the surrounding space, creating a listening experience built as much around resonance and silence as sound.
A Continuing Homage to R. Carlos Nakai
Although this new body of work begins with Silence and Space, it is also the continuation of a much larger artistic journey with R. Carlos Nakai's music.
Nakai's catalogue gives me an extraordinary landscape to explore. His official biography notes that he has released forty albums with Canyon Records, alongside additional recordings and guest appearances on other labels.
That opens the door to many years of listening and making.
Rather than creating one artwork and moving on, I want this to become an ongoing conversation with his music. Different albums, different collaborators, different recordings and different musical environments can each become the starting point for another visual response.
Will Clipman's presence in Silence and Space adds another dimension to that conversation. His restrained percussion works alongside Nakai's flute, creating an interplay between sound, rhythm and silence that gives me plenty of space to explore visually.
The two musicians have collaborated previously, including on Dancing into Silence and Awakening the Fire.
From Sound Into Something Visual
I don't know yet where this series will ultimately lead.
That is part of the attraction.
I will listen to Silence and Space again and again. I will work, stop, look, scrape back, add another layer, change direction and listen some more. Some works may emerge quietly. Others may become more restless. Some may reveal themselves quickly, while others may take months.
The music is the beginning. Everything that follows is discovered along the way.
For me, that is one of the great freedoms of being a full time artist. After decades of learning the materials, understanding composition, colour, texture and process, I can allow intuition to take its place alongside experience.
Silence and Space is therefore more than the title of an album or the name of this new body of work. It describes something I am increasingly interested in within my own practice: what can happen in the space between sound and silence, intention and accident, knowledge and intuition.
And this is only the beginning.
The journey with R. Carlos Nakai's music continues.
