Through the Aperture — Research on Harmony

Through the Aperture — Research on Harmony presents twenty-four paintings by Arnaud Quercy, each a transposition of a Western tonal chord into visual form. Shown at Art Quam Anima in Paris's 6th arrondissement, the series constitutes a rigorous and deeply felt investigation into the chromesthetic correspondence between musical pitch and color — a body of work that is simultaneously systematic and sensory, analytical and alive.

At the core of the series lies a consistent internal logic: the notes of a chord — triad, seventh, suspended, power chord, octave — become colors governed by a stable mapping between pitch and hue. The Bb Minor triad renders as violet, blue, and blue-green. A Major opens as yellow-orange, blue-green, and yellow. The tritone — Eb against A, the interval of maximum harmonic tension — appears as two colors held in suspension, neither resolving into consonance nor releasing into dissonance. What the system produces is not illustration but enactment: the eye is summoned to do what the ear does when truly listening — to hold an interval open long enough for something to emerge from within it.

What distinguishes each canvas from the next is not the chromesthetic system itself but the field it generates: how three colors distribute across a surface, how their voicing — close or spread, dense or airy — alters the quality of tension produced. The same chord, differently voiced, yields a different painting. This is not variation as aesthetic ornamentation. It is research in the fullest sense: a methodical traversal of harmonic space, tracking how subtle shifts in structure produce qualitatively distinct perceptual experiences.

Through the Aperture marks a continuation and deepening of Quercy's broader synesthetic practice — his ongoing effort to make visible what he calls the "invisible inner harmonics" that structure both musical experience and the life of color. These paintings do not resolve. They occasion. As the artist's own formulation has it: the painter emits; the viewer creates. This exhibition invites precisely that act of creation — a meeting between system and sensation in which perception becomes, briefly, its own form of composition.

Artist Statement

Harmony is not resolution. It is the moment before — the precise tension between forces that have not yet collapsed into agreement.

In this series, I map the harmonic space of Western tonality across its twenty-four keys. Each painting is a transposition: the notes of a chord — triad, seventh, suspended, power chord, octave — become colors, governed by a consistent chromesthetic correspondence between pitch and hue. The Bb Minor triad appears as violet, blue, and blue-green. A Major opens as yellow-orange, blue-green, and yellow. The tritone — Eb against A, the interval of maximum tension — becomes two colors held in suspension, neither resolving, neither releasing.

What changes from one canvas to the next is not the system but the field it generates: how three colors distribute themselves across a surface, how their voicing — close or spread, dense or airy — creates a different quality of tension. The same chord, differently voiced, produces a different painting. This is not variation as decoration. It is research.

These works do not illustrate harmony. They enact it. The eye is asked to do what the ear does when listening: to hold the interval open long enough for something to emerge. That emergence is not given by the work — it is occasioned by it.

Le peintre émet. Vous créez.

Logistics

Opening Hours: By appointment and during gallery hours
Venue: Art Quam Anima, 28, rue du Dragon, Paris 6e
Admission: Free
Contact: artquamanima.com