In the May/June issue of the Dutch Luister (Listen) Magazine is an article by Angelique van Os (photos by Andreas Terlaak) about my work as an artist with music: the beginning of a celebration (during the 2008/9 season) of my 75th birthday and of fifty years of painting music and musical celebrities in the form of watercolours, and performing live kinetic visuals with orchestras world-wide.
“One of the most memorable moments of the opening night of the Yong Pyong Great Mountains Music Festival was a performance by Norman Perryman in the Asian premiere of Murmurs in the Mist of Memory by Augusta Read Thomas. Perryman used overhead projectors to show his kinetic brushstrokes on screen during the music. He created an abstract illusion of spontaneity, building a layer of visual experience on to the music as it was performed on stage.” JoongAng Daily August 13, 2007
“Stravinsky would have undoubtedly given
his approval to the fantastic synthesis of live painting,
theatre and music this weekend in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw.
In “The Soldier’s Tale” an immense screen
hangs above the stage, on which one can follow the gestures
of the kinetic painting by Norman Perryman. The devil danced,
the soldier marched to the rhythm of the music and melted
into the image of his painted beloved. With a superbly chosen
combination of concrete and abstract images that flowed
into each other in an ingenious manner, Perryman followed
the structure of the music, but at the same time allowed
the development of his interplay of forms and colours. Rhythmically
he moves his brushes along the crooked route which the soldier
follows. When the devil blocks his way, the brush transforms
itself into a threatening black monster. Irresistible!”
De Telegraaf, 14 September
2004
The Great Gate of Kiev (Mussorgsky) sequence
“An ingenious audio-visual
experiment, with brilliantly conceived imagery”
The
Times, July12 1993
after the BBC documentary “Concerto for Paintbrush and
Orchestra” on Perryman’s performances to music,
with Sir Simon Rattle).
“Perryman is a musician, who creates music with his
paintbrush”
violinist Yehudi
Menuhin
“The trump card in the performance were the interventions
of the painter Norman Perryman, whose kinetic images were
seen live on screen in giant projections, as he illustrated
the drama with modern, fluid painting and images of varying
degrees of abstraction”.
NRC Handelsblad, 13
September 2004
“Surprise and Delight!” and “Boundary-breaking
music-theatre”.
from Dance and Dancers,
after a performance of ballet and kinetic painting with
the Netherlands Dance Theatre
“Two bubbles of paint when projected become two planets
on a collision course. You feel the audience holding their
breath. Other artists tell you to come and look when it’s
finished. But then you’re too late! I want to show
the creative process as it happens, so beautiful because
it’s ephemeral, like a sunset, you’ll never
see it again”.
De Gelderlander, 3 November
2004.
Joy of Visions
and Sounds
“With the worlds first-ever concerto for paintbrush
and orchestra, Perryman introduced a new art-form. How thrilling
to be at its birth! As it moved on-screen, the paintbrush
itself also became a vital image, insect-like, loose-limbed,
humorous or moving with swirling lyricism.”
Birmingham
Post, July 1993
"Perryman's compositional energy... is fortunately controlled by his poetic and musical nature. As in Kandinsky's work, one must look for the secret of this oeuvre in the intimate musical harmony of its author, which gives him a very special view of the world... The sensitive, lyrical rhythm in his compositions has an effect similar to that of a page of music".
(Roy Oppenheim, Head of Cultural Programmes, Swiss Television, Zurich, 1972).
"Perryman's works witness to a deep inner experience. They particularly excel for their unusually fine linear rhythm. We seldom meet such incredible musicality in visual artists".
