The Silent Music of Clara Leigh Mikimoto
– Mary Gregory
Finding resonances with earlier artists who worked in collage and ready-mades, artist Clara Leigh has developed a body of work that sings in a unique voice.
In the early 1900s, artists like Picasso, Braque and Gris built complex works of art out of paint and canvas, but also newspaper, books, wood, and, occasionally, sheet music. As the vision evolved, so did the expression, and the materials used to accomplish it grew wider and more varied. For Picasso, the guitar was a magical object, as could be seen in a recent exhibition at the Museum of Modern in New York. The guitar was constructed, deconstructed, built and depicted over and over in his work in two and three dimensions.
Leigh finds her inspiration primarily in the sensuous, sinuous lines of the violin. Perhaps no other instrument suggests the human form as much as does the curving, narrow-waisted violin. Man Ray’s classic Dada image Ingre’s Violin comes to mind viewing Leigh’s multi-layered compositions.
Sheet music, intentionally stained to suggest the passage of years, forms the foundation of her constructions, as it does for a musical performance. Leigh’s collaged pages of written music are then covered by parts of, or sometimes complete musical instruments. Violins and bows are the primary focus, but wind instruments and brass are also sometimes incorporated.
The effect Leigh creates is a multi-media experience of music that is, strangely, mute. The viewer can see the shine and warmth of metal or polished wood. He or she can see the complex technicality of notes arranged on a page. But to hear the music, the artist calls upon memory and imagination.
Art is not a direct form of communication. There is, hopefully, always something lost, something gained, something changed by the act of creation, and again, in the act of seeing. It is a mysterious gift that can never be experienced the same way twice.
Music has been an inspiration for visual artists for ages. Renaissance angels play lutes in the heavens. Painters from the Baroque to Cubism and beyond have depicted flutes and violins in still-life compositions and portraiture. Vermeer’s beautiful women never looked better than at their music lessons.