John Rooke

Formerly a professional musician, John's long  term involvement in classical music coupled with an interest in the visual arts led naturally to the production his own paintings and drawings. 

' My paintings are not intended to represent music literally but rather to explore its emotional power in a more abstract sense.  I am interested in the ‘stillness’ of  paintings as opposed to the movement through time of a musical performance. The artist Christopher Le Brun remarked that "a painting is a real thing that behaves as a metaphor"  - that is to say it alludes to something beyond itself.  In that sense my paintings take music as their reference.'