In the late 1970s, James Dupree found himself “throwing sound at canvas” while thinking about the early jazz impresarios who were masters of improvisation. This launched his career as a visual artist whose work more often than not renders visible what is heard and felt in music. More than fifty pieces are included in the exhibit “Fusion: The Connection Between Music and Art,” at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, which ran from April 25 to August 31, 2011. The Diptych (reproduced below) represents one of Dupree’s earliest works. Caked thick with acrylic paint, the surface textures combine with light and sweeping shapes to help evoke a kind of movement of acoustics and color. In the genre of lyrical abstraction, Dupree remembers these pieces also symbolizing “borders, bans, and restrictions” faced by jazz musicians in America around the time of the Second World War. With synthesthesia referring to “the simultaneous body-mind interplay of multiple senses” (Drewal 2005:4), I begin the review by drawing attention to the musical undercurrents we can feel in The Diptych.

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