Mark Sheeky Artworks

About this event

A piano performance by Mark Sheeky of six new works inspired by the exhibition by the Write Out Loud poets, Ekphrastic Towers. The art exhibition began with a series of objects and images, and the poets wrote poems about these. New artworks were painted or created in response to the poems, then more poems created in response to those artworks, thus creating four tiers, or evolutionary branches, of creation.

Mark Sheeky suggested composing some ekphrastic music in response to the work on show, creating a fifth tier, or pseudo-fifth tier, as his music was inspired by any of the artworks or poems in the exhibition.

Mark composed and rehearsed the music for solo piano over a two week period, using six works as inspiration: a sculpture called Reading Study; a poem, To a Fly in Amber; a Bobblehead Rat doll; a poem, The Candles Burn; an image from Winnie the Pooh; and finally a poem entitled Wild Horses.

After performing the six pieces of music, Mark improvised six new piano tunes based on poems and artworks suggested by the audience. Members of Write Out Loud including John F. Keane and Andy N. read poems between the music.