Elaine J. Oehmich, M.F.A.
Visual Sound Painting
Elaine J. Oehmich, M.F.A.
Copyrighted by Elaine J. Oehmich 2010. All Rights Reserved.
Biography
Originally from Northwest Indiana, Elaine J. Oehmich is a nationally acclaimed painter of sound. These visual sound paintings represent synesthetic visions of wind, music, and birdsong. The WTHR news video of her 2009 collaboration with world-renowned birdsong recordist, Geoffrey Keller, may be viewed on this website:
Please see Birdsong Video. "Visual sound has been an integral part of my life since I can remember. Lying underneath the grand piano as a toddler while my mother played dramatic chords, colors and forms danced before my eyes. It wasn't until my late teens when I read an article entitled 'Synesthesia' in a Psychology Today magazine that I fully realized the special nature of this faculty. When one sensory perception is stimulated, such as hearing, another is activated as well, and in my case, it is sight. Having the faculty of chromosthesia, whereby vision is stimulated by sound, I see the wind as a moving, changing, tangible entity in space, laced with color, value, texture and line in a 3-dimensional form." -- from Visual Sound: The Breathing Wind, June 2003 Solo Exhibition, Nth Degree Gallery, Boone, NC.
A collaboration with The Bloomington Symphony Orchestra (2007), and later with the Northwest Indiana Symphony Orchestra (2010), resulted in a series of music paintings, of which Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5 is featured here:
Please see Music Paintings.
Ms. Oehmich completed the Bachelor of Arts from Indiana University (1978) and the Master of Fine Arts from Savannah College of Art and Design (2001). She taught art at Appalachian State University from 2001-2005, at Florida State College in 2005, and at Purdue University's Calumet Campus in Hammond, Indiana, from 2013-2016.
In April of 2013 Ms. Oehmich was honored by the Crown Point High School Alumni Association by induction into their Hall of Fame with the Creativity Award. Recent exhibitions include "Colors of the Wind" at South Shore Arts, Hammond, IN, "Concepts and Compositions" and "Wind and Spirit" at the Cornerstone Gallery, Whiting, IN, and "Colors of the Wind" at The Ivy Tech Waldron Art Center, Bloomington, IN. Ms. Oehmich currently resides in Bloomington, IN.
For further information, please see: Curriculum Vitae
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painting sound
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