Ali Barker

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Ali Barker creates visual representations of music and sound in colour, inspired by her experiences of the phenomenon of sound-colour synaesthesia. When Ali listens to music, she perceives notes of the musical scale as specific colours, expressing these through abstract paintings. As a violinist and violist in her spare time, orchestral music inspires some of her paintings; other works are inspired by the wide range of music she listens to, or by music chosen by a client for a commission.

Ali’s paintings are expressive synaesthetic responses made by directly applying the colours to the paper or canvas while listening to a specific piece of music and works derived from translations of the written music or analysis of recorded sounds, represented as geometric patterns. Ali completed her MA in Fine Art in 2019, with a body of work focusing on the relationship between the orchestra and the soloist in a concerto.

Ali is also interested in depicting the urban skyline as colourful cityscapes; her Liverpool Composition and Wirral Composition murals are public artworks inside the Birkenhead Tunnel.