Repurposing any object and turning it into art requires quite a lot of creativity. Erika Iris Simmons continues to amaze us with this second part of illustrations made from musical notes.
This is not the first time Erika Iris Simmons‘ works are featured on Walyou. Two years ago, a VHS tape representation of The Dude (Big Lebowski) made by the same artist was presented here, along with the portraits of numerous other famous people, made either from cassette or VHS tapes. In the meantime, Erika decided to change the raw material from which her illustrations are made, and turned her attention to musical notes. The first part of her musical note illustrations can be found here.
First of all, Erika seems to have a special attraction for classic composers. The first series of images featured Mozart’s Serenade No. 10 and a trumpeting female angel flying out of the stave. Below, the musical notes and the staffs reconfigure to create one of the many versions of Beethoven’s portrait that Erika created. The way these elements are recycled and combined to create those negative spaces is simply mind-boggling.
Initially a face-painter at Universal Studios and then a makeup design student, Erika seems to have found an excellent and utterly original way of exploiting her creativity. As she mentioned, “I became fascinated with books about perception and cognition. I think creating these optical illusions everyday [with makeup] made me curious about how our minds perceive shadows, and how we put together the image of the world around us.”
In the above picture, musical notes and staffs are cut using a traditional art knife. Probably in Erika’s vision, beautiful music is not enough. Surely, complementing or even totally converting the music to pictures creates an amazing effect.
Images from the previous series included an illustration of Martin Luther King, made from the musical notes of Amazing Grace, the Goddess of Music, which was custom-made for an Indian organization. Next is what Erika calls “The Human Condition”, a collage of music, literature, trigonometry and mathematics. The last piece is surely a great way of representing the great thirst for knowledge exhibited by the human kind. The Goddess of Music, which was made from “One Heart, One Mind” by Johann Strauss is Erika’s favorite work.
In case you like one of the above works very much and do not consider that $350 is a large sum of money, you can actually place an order for a 17 by 22 inches print on Erika’s website.
If you liked this post, please check the Big Lebowski illustration made by the same artist, and the sewing machine orchestra.
