Ellen Hackl Fagan builds connections between color and sound using installations, interactive games, and collaborative projects that combine color-and-texture saturated paintings with music and digital technologies. Each installation invites viewers an opportunity to explore synaesthesia for themselves.
Balanced between randomness and intention, like jazz music, Fagan’s art continues to reveal limitless possibilities for improvisation. Saturation, accident, and the nature of the materials impose their own voice. Color seduces.
Blue is an invitation to get reckless.
Rich, powdery, dangerous, The Void.
Jumping off generates new information. Painting opens the door to life’s patterns. Echoing life’s chaotic beauty, her sources can be linked to pop music, Rimbault, Jungian psychology, the theory of correspondences, Minimalist and decorative art.
Fagan is the inventor of the Reverse Color Organ and the ColorSoundGrammar Game, two projects that enable viewers to interact aurally with color. In collaboration with web architect Joshie Fishbein, the Reverse Color Organ is a web app, downloadable to a smartphone, thus placing this synaesthetic tool into peoples’ hands to be used, not only to expand the language of color, but also as a crowd-sourced musical instrument.
Fagan exhibits her work extensively throughout New England and New York City. In 2014 she expanded her independent curatorial practice into a full-time business and is now the owner of ODETTA Gallery in Bushwick, Brooklyn. There, she maintains her painting studio and is an active member of this vibrant arts community.
Find original Ellen Hackl Fagan paintings and drawings on 1stDibs.
(Biography provided by ODETTA Gallery)
Ellen Hackl Fagan, Doremi_Musicians-L, 2012, ink, gouache, rag paper
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
ColorSoundGrammar Ellen Hackl Fagan There is a long history of sound/color synaesthesia work, from Isaac Newton’s color organ to Alexander Scriabin’s “Prometheus,” but not much wor...
Ink, Gouache, Rag Paper
$5,500
Ellen Hackl Fagan, Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue_Delft, 2015, Rag Paper
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Ellen Hackl Fagan is an interdisciplinary abstract painter who uses synaesthesia, digital media and interactive performance as tools for developing a corresponding language between color and sound in her work. This year she focused in on the core concept in her abstract work and began creating a small series of works on paper titled “Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue.” This series has evolved into floor to wall installations of blue paintings on paper and on the floor that explore the nature of printmaking processes, texture and surface. Ellen Hackl Fagan is the inventor of The Reverse Color Organ and the ColorSoundGrammar Game, two projects that enable viewers to interact aurally with color. In collaboration with cognitive scientist Michael Cole...
Archival Ink, Acrylic, Rag Paper, Pigment
$5,200
Ellen Hackl Fagan, Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue_Oceanic Plastic, 2015
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Ellen Hackl Fagan is an interdisciplinary abstract painter who uses synaesthesia, digital media and interactive performance as tools for developing a corresponding language between color and sound in her work. Focused in on the core concept in her abstract work, Fagan began creating a small series of works on paper titled “Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue.” This series has evolved into floor to wall installations of blue paintings on paper and on the floor that explore the nature of printmaking processes, texture and surface. Ellen Hackl Fagan is the inventor of The Reverse Color Organ and the ColorSoundGrammar Game, two projects that enable viewers to interact aurally with color. In collaboration with cognitive scientist Michael Cole...
Acrylic Polymer, Archival Ink, Rag Paper, Pigment
A Taxonomy of Pond Weed_Cedar Shake Removed, 30 x 42., Atmospheric Blue Abstract
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in New York, NY
Ellen Hackl Fagan transforms stillness into motion. She begins with a brittle 18th-century cedar shingle—salvaged from a landmarked house she restored—and saturates it with vivid blu...
Acrylic, Rag Paper
Ellen Hackl Fagan, Doremi_Musicians-J, 2012, Ink, Gouache, Rag Paper
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
ColorSoundGrammar Ellen Hackl Fagan There is a long history of sound/color synaesthesia work, from Isaac Newton’s color organ to Alexander Scriabin’s “Prometheus,” but not much ...
Ink, Gouache, Rag Paper
$3,000
H 47.25 in W 46.07 in D 0.04 in
Moldovan Contemporary Art by Doïna Vieru - Untitled
By Doïna Vieru
Located in Paris, IDF
Acrylic & ink on photographic paper
Ink, Photographic Paper, Acrylic
Argentinian Tango, Mixed Media Abstract Expressionist
By Ricardo de Silva
Located in Soquel, CA
Argentinian Tango, Mixed Media Abstract Expressionist An abstract portrait in cool pastels accented in vibrant yellow and pink and lined in ink, by California-based artist, Ricardo de Silva (American). Paper size: 17.75"H x 12"W From a collection of Ricardo de Silva's work and memorabilia. DeSilva was born in Brazil and grew up in Los Angeles. He was a gallery owner, first in Santa Barbara in the 1960's and 70's, then in San Jose in the 1980's. He was dedicated to promoting the work of talented upcoming artists, including Kogyo and Hasui Kiyochika, Robert Frame, Jim Stuckenberg, Alice Robertson Carr, Deborah Eve Alastra...
Paper, Gouache, Ink, Watercolor
Basement Systems
By Kory Twaddle
Located in Kansas City, MO
Artist : Kory Twaddle Title : Basement Systems Materials : Acrylic, tempera, gouache, and glitter glue on cardboard drawing pad back Date : 2019 Dimensions : 18 x 12 x .2 in. Kory ...
Paint, Paper, Conté, Charcoal, India Ink, Acrylic, Tempera, Watercolor, ...
$8,250
H 30.25 in W 34.75 in D 1.5 in
1960s Mid-Century Modern Abstract Gouache by Ward Lockwood, New Mexico Art
By Ward Lockwood
Located in Denver, CO
This vintage 1960s abstract painting by acclaimed New Mexico modernist Ward Lockwood (1894–1963) exemplifies the energy and innovation of mid-century modern art. Executed in gouache ...
Mixed Media, Ink, Gouache
$476
H 16.54 in W 11.82 in D 0.04 in
Original drawing-Golden Summer- British Awarded Artist-work on paper-plein air
By Shizico Yi
Located in London, GB
Shizico spent three days painting this plein air in her sunlit garden. She applied 550 Ture Gold paint and Van Gogh Yellow creating a stunning backdrop which served as the canvas for...
Gold
$476
H 25.75 in W 19.75 in
Mid Century French Abstract Expressionist Black Ink Gestural Painting
Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire
Title: Mid Century French Abstract Expressionist Black Ink Gestural Painting Medium: Black ink/ gouache painting on paper, unframed French, circa 1950's Size: 25.75 inches x 19.75 (h...
Paper, Ink, Gouache
$1,200
H 38.59 in W 25.6 in D 0.12 in
Rinzen. Abstract Mixed media painting on handmade Washi paper.
By On Hansen
Located in Miami Beach, FL
Traces of lived experiences appear in On Hansen's works, exploring the possibilities of formal abstraction and seeking an organic experience between space an...
Organic Material, Ink, Handmade Paper, Wax, Oil, Washi Paper
$508
H 19.75 in W 25.5 in
Mid Century French Abstract Expressionist Calligraphic Ink Painting
Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire
Title: Mid Century French Abstract Expressionist Calligraphic Ink Painting Medium: Black ink/ gouache painting on paper, unframed French, circa 1950's ...
Paper, Ink, Gouache
Untitled-019 gouache and pencil by Vaclav Vytlacil
By Vaclav Vytlacil
Located in Hudson, NY
Delightful petite abstract work by American abstract artist Vaclav Vytlacil. About this artist: Born in 1892 to Czechoslovakian parents in New York, Vaclav Vytlacil and his parents ...
Paper, Gouache, Cardboard, Pencil
SF 89-153.
By Sam Francis
Located in Östermalm, Stockholms län
Artwork size: 67 x 51 cm. Frame size: 112 x 97 cm. Free shipment worldwide. Archive number SF 89-153 in the Sam Francis Foundation. Stamped with the Sam Francis Estate logo and stamped signature on verso. Sam Francis’s paintings are a journey into a dream, a voyage into the landscapes of the soul where colours are lights on fire. Alongside names such as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline, Sam Francis is an artist who has succeeded in demonstrating a total mastery of abstract expressionism’s impassioned and spontaneous genre. The explosions of colour – red, blue, green and yellow – the streaks, strokes and bold lines of his pictures are the physical synthesis of the deepest crevices of the soul. His colours create rhythmical motifs that, characteristically enough, can be called the “musicality” of his paintings. The work of Sam Francis provides a visible meeting place for the conscious and the unconscious. His pictures are the cross-fertilisation of what has already been experienced with what exists still only as desire, a struggle between melancholy and merrymaking. Influenced by C.G. Jung, the father of psychoanalysis, Sam Francis spent a large portion of his life exploring the premise that dreams, instincts and intuition provide, the keys which unlock the mysteries and meaning of our inner lives. He was also fascinated by the four ancient elements – earth, water, air and fire – which developed into a leitmotif in his work. Sam Francis was born in San Mateo in California, USA in 1923. After starting to paint at the age of around twenty, he soon found himself increasingly consumed by the power of art. He spent much of the 1950s in Paris, from where he not only made frequent excursions to a number of European cities, but also embarked on many journeys to South America and Asia. He continued to move from place to place, primarily in the USA and Japan, right up until his death in 1994. Sam Francis’s first...
Paper, Acrylic
$3,600
H 35 in W 76.5 in D 0.1 in
Abstract Triptych Painting, Minimalist, 2010, Unframed
By On Hansen
Located in Miami Beach, FL
Repetition, The temptation is always to believe in the stability and Faintly falling On Hansen bears the traces of lived experiences, exploring the possibilities of formal abstracti...
Paper, Crayon, Ink, Wax, Acrylic, Graphite
$3,000
H 11 in W 17 in
"Casper" Diana Kurz, New York Female Abstract Expressionist Gouache on Paper
By Diana Kurz
Located in New York, NY
Diana Kurz Casper Gouache on paper 11 x 17 inches Diana Kurz (born 1936) is an Austrian-born feminist painter. In 1938, Diana Kurz's family fled Austria, first to England and then ...
Paper, Gouache