Painter Caroline Pinney debuts ‘SETLIST,’ her music-inspired work

The contemporary sits with writer Anna Carlson to discuss the artist’s new painting collection which is influenced by the music she loves

Austin-based painter Caroline Pinney credits music as her muse. Her latest body of work, “SETLIST,” celebrates artists and albums that deeply resonate with her. All her life, she’s looked to music to guide her visual voice.

Growing up with a mother as a painter, Pinney was encouraged to embrace art at an early age. After receiving her BFA from the University of Alabama, she lived in Nashville and Richmond before settling in Austin. Each city’s art and music scenes informed the liveliness and poeticism in Pinney’s practice. The characters or figures emphasized in Pinney’s work represent different versions of herself or the people in her life she admires, creating a personable motif for her audience. Much of her artwork involves layering brushstrokes and incredible multimedia compositional movement, provoking a sense of introspection.

Following her recent exhibition at the Commerce Gallery, the contemporary painter curated a Spotify playlist as the central theme of her newest collection to produce work that embodied the music she loves. The eclectic playlist features musicians such as Radiohead, Billie Eilish and Norah Jones. Pinney’s playful dialogue between the art forms achieves a dynamic presentation of expressive eloquence.

1. Do you have synesthesia?
I had to look this up — maybe! It wouldn’t surprise me. I wonder if most creatives do to a degree…I’ve always associated friends with specific colors and wondered if other people do that too.

2. Do you ever get distracted by the music in the studio and start a dance party?
Music actually immerses me more in my work. It’s become nearly impossible for me to really drop into the process without it. I definitely move around a good bit naturally while I paint, but it never pulls me out of the process entirely. Out of the studio — absolutely. Find me dancing throughout the house.

3. Which songs/which pieces of music did you hear growing up?
Growing up, we often had music playing throughout the house in my family. Mostly it would be the Beatles, Van Morrison, Etta James, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young among others— the sultry, jazzy stuff. That music feels so homey to me now. The song “Helplessly Hoping” by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young makes me think of my Dad with a kitchen towel over his shoulder, mumbling the words to the song while whisking homemade Béarnaise sauce to top a tenderloin — a favorite of my sisters’ and mine. I might hear that song and implement the same butter-yellow color of the sauce into a painting subconsciously as the memory passes through. That feels honest to me.

4. Compositionally, how did you capture the essence of each song? What was your decision-making process like?
I thought of each song in terms of the way it makes me feel personally. In my statement for this collection, I talk about how our bodies communicate well on their own. I tried to translate that within the body language of the figures and color palettes of each piece. For my painting “A-SIDE,” I listened to one side of Kevin Morby’s record, “City Music” on repeat. Once the piece was finished, I flipped the record to the other side and created the painting’s sister piece: “B-SIDE.” Two sides of one album interpreted by me into two paintings. I only planned the composition — I wanted the figures to be leaning back into one another in opposite directions to communicate the ebbs and flows we experience in relationships with others and ourselves. The dichotomy of this diptych really captures what I wanted to achieve with this collection: music filtered through me into a visual body of work.

5. Did you draw any inspiration from any of the existing album art off your playlist?
If I did, it was certainly subconscious. I mostly rely on intuitive mark-making and color palettes that I’m drawn to in-home and design publications. I will say I’m especially drawn to the blues implemented in The Maria’s latest album — I think that particular hue is creeping its way into my work more lately.

Pinney’s work is sold on Tappan, and her prints can also be found at Neiman Marcus.