Ali Barker

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. Ali is also an orchestral musician in her spare time, playing violin and viola. The music that she performs 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 often works with patterns and geometric forms, creating works derived from translations of the written music or analysis of recorded sounds. Other paintings are expressive synaesthetic responses, made by directly applying the colours to the paper or canvas while listening to a specific piece of music, or a combination of these styles.

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, highlighting the complexity of music but extracting key themes from the musical structure.

Ali is also interested in depicting the urban skyline as colourful cityscapes; her ‘Liverpool Composition’ & ‘Wirral Composition’ mural designs won Merseytravel’s ‘Design a New Skyline’ competition and are public artworks on display inside the Birkenhead Tunnel.