"The trombone gronks, and she responds with a thump of her paintbrush, a loud red thwak! on black. The cymbal shimmers, and she flicks an arpeggio of white streaks to accent the head of the drummer, whose likeness she's implied in a flurry of yellow lines. Often, the musicians react to her --a cadenza might cap a particularly vigorous commotion of strokes; an abrupt change in tempo might follow a series of long, slow gestural sweeps. Gradually, as Nancy Ostrovsky paints to live jazz by the Rosewell Rudd Trio, you become aware that what you're really watching is not three, but four musicians improvising.
Ostrovsky, of Accord, has been doing her vibrant thing to live jazz for some time now, ever since the days when she and Syd Smart ran a gallery together in Boston. She started by painting to Smart's drumming, crouched in a inconspicous corner of the floor. 'He'd do this percussion stuff that was really very sculptural, hitting these pots and pans and going up and down with his sticks, ' Nancy recalls, 'and I was going up and down with my sticks...it was like being in a kitchen and cooking together, and we just connected.'
Eventually, Nancy began to assert more of her physical presence in performance, quitting the floor, standing before a panel or canvas, painting to and with the music. Today, having worked with such illustrious and responsive players as David Murray, Fred Hopkins, and Andrew Cyrille, and having spent 20 years developing an 'inner vocabulary' of squiggles, daubs and smears thar correspond to musical figures, she sees herself, in performance, as part of the musical process. 'I've stopped trying to have some big concept about it,' she says. '[The performance] is just who I'm with, and where I'm at, and whatever's happening at the moment.'"
-- Mikhail Horowitz (The Woodstock Times, July 1998)
Venues have included:
Institute of Contemporary Art, MA
International Festival of Media Art and Media Future, Germany
Eastman School of Music
Fabrik, Germany
The John Coltrane Memorial Concert
Boston Film Video Foundation
Knitting Factory
Massachusetts College of Art
Cambridge Multicultural Center, MA
Green Street Grille, MA
Byrdcliffe Theatre, NY
Cambridge River Festival, MA
United States Information Agency, Germany
Nancy Ostrovsky was born in North Africa and spent her childhood in Taiwaan, the Philippines, Bangkok and Bangladesh.
Visit Nancy's website at http://www.nancyostrovsky.com.
All paintings copyright © Nancy Ostrovsky. All Rights Reserved.
|
Rahsaan Roland Kirk - Acrylic on Black Chrome Coated Paper, 20"x 26", 1994.
I saw Rahsaan Roland Kirk in the early 70's. Because he was
blind, he was led on stage with the many instruments he
played draped around his neck. It was very moving to see
him brought on stage, and even more incredible to hear him
play several instruments at a time. This portrait captures the
power I felt when he played.
Jazz to Rap III - Acrylic on Canvas, 16"x 20", 1998.
This is the third Jazz To Rap painting I have done. At the
time I did the first Jazz To Rap painting, I was listening to
the music of Prince along with Jazz. I found similarities with
the improvisational elements, the compositions, the freedom
of phrasing and the beautiful sound. The constant
categorizing, classifying and naming of music sometimes
seems irrelevant. When one listens, THE MUSIC doesn't
have the boundaries we create.
Eric Dolphy w/Sunglasses - Acrylic on Canvas Board, 9" x 12", 1993.
Eric Dolphy is a very spiritual musician for me. I come back
to his music over and over again and I have done numerous
paintings of him. There is a powerful beauty around
musicians. Even in photos, if you block out the instrument,
the body language and facial expression of the musician is
often humble and prayer-like.
The White Suit - Acrylic on Canvas, 32" x 42", 1998.
The movement of the body while a musician plays is
something that I love to capture. The musician in The
White Suit captures this movement and also gives a feeling
for the Music's History. The other figure is less obviously
depicted signifying the avant-garde nature in direct
antithesis of the trumpeter in The White Suit. Though their
history is in different decades, they remain connected.
Solo - Acrylic on Canvas, 20" x 22", 1998.
Solo was done very quickly. Though painted on canvas in
my studio, the painting captures, using only brush strokes,
the movement and line quality of my live painting
performances. Solo projects out into a room the way music
does from an instrument. It feels much larger than it is and
commands a lot of attention. In color, it captures form,
movement and expression.
Duo - Acrylic on Canvas, 28" x 36", 1995.
A few years ago, I was preparing for a live performance with
Howard Johnson at the Fabrik in Hamburg, Germany. Duo
was inspired by Howard's music. It is also based in part on a
photo of Howard taken by Sabine Rocholl, who for many
years has coordinated my appearances in Europe. The style
of this painting is reflective of my canvas work. There are
multi-levels and stories which interconnect.
Horn and Drums Blues - Mixed Media on Leather Briefcase, 1996.
I have painted many objects: tables, chairs, old
phonographs, trunks, purses, clothing -you name it-
throughout my career. This briefcase is, on one side, a
study in blue of a horn player and a drummer. Perhaps
sometime we'll use the other side as well.
Sun Ra Band - Acrylic on Canvas, 39"x 49", 1986.
I painted this after listening to the Sun Ra tune "On A
Moonship Journey". I had been living in a Hasidic community
for a year and a half. Sun Ra's music, which I played often in
my home, helped me put things in perspective. If our lives
are journeys with many possible paths, who is to say which is
the most grounded, which is the most real, which one we
should follow.
|
