I must admit that the link between my transvestism, and the art to be shown in this  forthcoming exhibition is a questionable one, but then to take any literal idea and interpret it into a visual one is ultimately an impossible task. However it seems that this form of challenge attracts me, as in my previous music paintings I attempted to transform sound into brush and pen marks. Then again art is about the impossible, as in placing heaven and the angels just above your head in a Renaissance fresco or in more modern times turning the handlebars and saddle of a bike into the head of a bull. So how to go about this? I do feel that if you saturate your mind with some strong ideas and feelings then ultimately these can filter through into your work. The Ideas that I have used in these pieces are not necessarily specifically transvestite but general ones, the aspects of wearing, experiencing and revelling in clothes and in the various qualities that they possess such as concealment, transformation, and power. 
In 1996. I had worked for some years on watercolours from the nude figure, and wanted to embark on some different work. I had an idea which was to clothe my nudes, but also a desire to express my transvestism in some way, which was the most prominent thought, I cannot recall. I executed watercolours and collages but  tucked them away in a plans chest. These now constitute the smaller work in this exhibition. This year, 2017, I completed seven large canvases adding contrast and more weight to my share of the show. They are what I would describe as textile collages and spring from the earlier ‘Choice’ and Autograph’ pictures. The starting point of each was a dress form sewn or/and adhered to the surface. 

I share the exhibition with Anita Ford whose recent work with it’s figurative self analysis explores  issues of deafness and cancer. Here too is revealed a world of mystery and isolation and reflects a similar investigation my search to understand and come to terms with my TV.​

'We all have secrets. Sometimes these get accidentally exposed, but not always in an obvious way. Acceptance and confrontation in wrestling our demons enables us to reason and finally come to terms with our existence and mortality’. 
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In 1996 I spent a short break in the Cotswolds. Away from my studio there was an opportunity to develop a new series of paintings which I called Vestments. It was born out of a desire to express a part of myself, which, with the exclusion of my closest friends was hidden, my transvestism. This body of work has since sat in a plan chest waiting for its moment to be revealed.
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 With the forthcoming exhibition in October at the Menier Gallery http://www.meniergallery.co.uk/. which I will be sharing with Anita Ford http://www.anitaford-art.co.uk , I have the opportunity to display these previously unseen paintings and collages. 

To augment the 1996 paintings I am currently working on larger canvases in mixed media. As a transvestite my first interest is in the garments, but I also seek to encompass the wider issues of dress. Aspects such as concealment, isolation, transformation, are some of the many ways in which garments can effect the substance and identity of a person.



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I will be showing two of my music paintings in a group show ‘Making A Mark’ at The Courtyard Gallery, Port Vale Hertford, from 6th June to the1st July, but aside from this I will be leaving the subject of music for a while to return to a previously neglected area of my work - vestments. This is to prepare for a joint exhibition with Anita Ford http://www.anitaford-art.co.uk  at the Menier Gallery, 51 Southwark Street London SE1 1RU to run from the evening of 24th October to 3rd November http://www.meniergallery.co.uk/. I am currently working on seven multi media canvases based on a series of collaged maquettes which I plan to feature on one of the large walls. The kernel of the exhibition however is a series of small pictures made back in 1996. It was the first time that I had attempted to express my transvestism in my art, and now in later life it’s time to expose and so defuse this aspect of myself and to develop this aspect of my work which has been neglected for too long.  


April 2017

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In 1995 I was invited by the Kentmere House Gallery in York, to be the resident artist at the York Early Music Festival. This was the beginning of the road to linking my combined interests in painting and music. 

The early work was figurative based, however when I had the opportunity of a second residency at York during 2010, one of the key events for me was the Sixteen’s performance of the Monteverdi Vespers. It was then that I decided to paint the music, rather than the performance. To gain more insight into this huge composition I attended a workshop formed to give singers an opportunity to sing through the vespers themselves, and later in  December I exhibited my Vesper paintings.

Last year I was again at the York Festival, but during the intervening time my thoughts and ideas on Music and Painting had developed. Feeling driven to portray music more precisely, I believed that there were common elements that would help me find richer and more fulfilling ways of expressing a visual understanding of the art form. Starting by looking at various musical elements that might aid me, for example motifs, modulation, instrumentation, rhythm, phrasing, melody, words and duration, I then looked for possible visual equivalents. A mass of small drawings was created which I called music lines which looked at various methods of interpretation. These are some of those drawings.

I felt there was the whole history of modern art to fall back on and was totally unconcerned where my investigations took me, feeling free to investigate whatever style would help direct me towards my goal.

One major hurdle soon encountered was that music has duration whereas painting exists outside of time. I did start to consider film as a more accessible medium with which to practice my obsession, but due to the time involved in learning a new discipline this has been put on hold. Instead I have examined more attainable means. We are programmed in the western world to read writing from left to right, as it descends the page, this being a parallel of speech in time. I also was aware of biblical stories told by Renaissance and Pre-Renaissance artists by the means of pictograms, notably Giotto’s frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel at Padua, and of course there is also the Bayeux tapestry. This is the linear device that I have generally used. 

The music lines made me aware of the different ways in which drawing and colour could help me. Drawing had the ability to express elements such as musical rhythm and phrasing, whilst colour opened up possibilities of expressing harmony, modulation and instrumentation. Looking at this in visual terms you could say that one was tangible and the other intangible, the latter being the most challenging.

I chose a short and straight forward piece of music for my first foray. It was a piece written by a friend Andrew Campling for soprano and piano. In order to try to achieve the colour aspect I completed a series of about a dozen paintings till they gradually developed into the form I desired. As well as using ideas from the music lines I used a modular approach.

Time was spent equally listening to the music, and going through the manuscript, in order initially to determine the size and proportion of the planned work and then to develop it. The resulting paintings formed the starting point for my exhibition last year in York. To these I added more paintings based on music performed at the Festival, including Triste España played by the Rose Consort, Purcell’s Variations, three parts upon a ground by young musicians at Jumpstart and Concerto Grosso by Locatelli performed by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

Andrew Campling and I had been discussing a collaboration, a concert/exhibition similar to one we had held in 1999. We decided to go ahead choosing two plainsong melodies Stabat mater and Ave maris stella, chosen for their beauty and simplicity, as themes forming the base of a musical composition and a series of paintings. We decided to return to Conway Hall as the most suitable venue for the cumulation of our respective journeys. The available space suggested an opportunity to show my longer journey in music starting with Vespers - Entry, I added to this mini retrospective canvases and watercolours based on the selected plainsong melodies. Moving from the relative complexity of Locatelli to the plainsong was quite a jump,  the plainsong being only one line of music. I sought out extra possibilities within the text, incorprating letters of the text in the subsequent paintings. The colour was more restrained, change in tone reflected movement. What I liked was the way that a painting could resemble  what I called a songboard, a reference to when monks would sing from the same single large, often illuminated manuscript.

 Stella induced the feeling of light on the sea, the deeper pitched notes sinking into the canvas the higher ones flickering like fish above. As is often the case, the restrictions in the subject stimulated the imagery more rather than less. 

  In the earliest work entitled Vespers - Entry ( see illustration at the top of the blog ) the music line was still subjected to a non sequential approach mixing elements obtained in the form of a collage. I have included this as I expect to return to this method when I have fully explored the linear one. It allows more visual freedom but at the expense of accurate portrayal. It would perhaps also give me the opportunity to incorporate other elements that interest me which have a more random visual track. 

In conclusion you can disregard all of the above as I believe that paintings must speak for themselves. I suppose that I am just trying to convey how exciting it has been for me being inspired from such a wonderful sounds. The ideas have left their mother music for a new form.

Alfred Huckett 2015