Synesthesia: Anne Graaff on the Sikora Culpo Duo Artwork

Anne Graaff is a South African and British artist, art historian and poet. She created the artwork for the three albums of the Sikora Culpo Duo, the duo of saxophonist Catherine Sikora and pianist Christopher Culpo.

The conversation

In September 2020, after the release of the duo’s latest album, we had a relaxed conversation with Anne Graaff about her work with the duo, her passion for music and synesthesia: a circular story of sound turned into visuals, and visuals turned into sound.

Thanks to Anne Graaff, Catherine Sikora and Christopher Culpo.

On synesthesia

Synesthesia is the translation of one sense into another sense. When this refers to music, it is when sound is translated into visuals or visuals translated into sound.

Kandinsky is an example of an artist who worked like that, because music was one of his inspirations.

I absolutely love sitting and listening to sound. Sometimes it’s sounds in nature but sometimes it is musical sounds, in real time, trying to make translations, translating what I hear through my ears into something visual.

For me it is sort of, I suppose, like a meditation, a really profound meditation, because one is so much in the moment. And one is attempting to capture qualities about the music, in rapid motion.

So then one is attempting to capture, how can I say, the whole tone and feel of the piece, and then also through color and line.

Then one is continuously aware of the sounds, of heavy or light, if they seem to be breezy or earthed, if they seem to have curly and curved shapes, or scattering shapes, or a linear shape. And the lines are always moving.

It’s very rapid, the work that I do in this way. It seems to me that it’s a lovely fresh and open way to work.

Anne Graaff

The artwork for The Paris Sessions

Anne Graaff created one original artwork for each track of The Paris Sessions Vol. 1: Mimesis and The Paris Sessions Vol. 2: Speaking in Tongues, directly in response to the music.

About Anne Graaff

Anne Graaff is a South African and British artist, art historian and poet. She lives in France, close to Fontainebleau.

In her artwork she is a painter and a maker of artist’s books; her Fine Art MA thesis, on contemporary book art, informs her practice. An art historian specializing in Outsider Art, she has written two books published by Penguin South Africa, under the name Anne Emslie. In 2017 she republished The Owl House, a book about the South African Outsider artist Helen Martins.

Her poetry is published in various publications, including Carapace, Stanzas, and the anthologies of African poetry Africa, My Africa! and Absolute Africa! (Sun Publishers).

Recent exhibitions of her artist’s books and paintings include Elles métamorphosent le Livre II, curated by Caroline Corre at the gallery Espace des Femmes in Paris; a solo exhibition of artist’s books, The Fan Books, at the Atelier de la Main d’Or, Paris; and the group shows Be:e at La Porte Peintre, France, My Mother’s Garden at Parts and Labor Gallery, Johannesburg, Domestic Departures and Mixed Metaphors at the Kalk Bay Modern, Cape Town, and Art/Out of the Ordinary at the AVA Gallery, Cape Town.

Key facts