My name is Tamara, and I am a Live Painting Performance Artist. I love creating paintings on stage with musicians. I've been painting and drawing all my life, always inspired by music—whether at home or during concerts in my sketchbook. But in 2012, I took this passion to the stage, painting live with jazz musicians and classical ensembles like Sinfonia Toronto.

Over 14 years of performing, I have created more than 160 paintings on stage and participated in 36 live painting performances. During this time, I’ve had the privilege of collaborating with incredible classical and jazz musicians.

 

For a long time, I believed that everyone saw colours when they heard music. Only later did I realize that I experience synesthesia—specifically chromesthesia, a form of synesthesia where sound is perceived as colour.

 

The word "synesthesia" comes from the Greek roots syn (union) and aesthesis (sensation), meaning "a union of the senses." Research suggests that several composers, including Mozart, Scriabin, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Liszt, were synesthetes. Writers like Nabokov, Pasternak, Tolstoy, Baudelaire, and Tsvetaeva also experienced synesthetic perceptions, as did artists like Paul Klee, Van Gogh, and Wassily Kandinsky.

 

Since childhood, I have seen visions when I heard music and tried to capture them in my drawings. Sometimes, these visions appear as abstract coloured shapes and lines; other times, they form complete scenes—like movies or stories with characters. These visions often continue into my dreams, inspiring the paintings I create upon waking.

 

Unlike many live painting performers who plan their artwork in advance, I work purely through improvisation. When the music begins, I start painting with no prior preparation. The chords, rhythms, melodies, and compositions guide my colours, brushstrokes, and movement. The results are always unexpected.

 

Sometimes, the music tells me a story that I try to capture in just 20 minutes. For example, during a Toronto Symphony performance of De Falla’s Spanish Dance, I envisioned a dramatic bullfight and translated that imagery onto the canvas. When they played Komitas, I immediately saw blossoming trees—memories of Armenia and its beautiful apricot blossoms.

 

Wassily Kandinsky wrote in On the Spiritual in Art:

"Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmony, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul."

 

For me, this quote perfectly describes the deep connection between music and visual art.

​

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PycAirn-bmQ