Checkerboard Piano

This is inspired by John Cage’s most famous composition, 4’33”,  based on the following logic; music is sound, sound is music, and because there is no such thing as silence*, music is everywhere, always. In performances of 4’33”, the piano is silent, the sound source is the hall. Audiences are forced to listen to the sounds around them, coughing, ventilation, seat shuffling, candy wrappers opening…this is all music if contextualized as such, according to Cage.

This painting is a theatre with the piano at centre stage. Rows of multi-colored squares and angled rectangles are the audience, balconies and lighting grid. The checkerboard piano and its environment are one.

acrylic on canvas  14 x 14