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Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

American, b. 1960

Ellen Hackl Fagan builds connections between color and sound using installations, interactive games, and collaborative projects that combine color-and-texture saturated paintings with music and digital technologies. Each installation invites viewers an opportunity to explore synaesthesia for themselves.

Balanced between randomness and intention, like jazz music, Fagan’s art continues to reveal limitless possibilities for improvisation. Saturation, accident, and the nature of the materials impose their own voice. Color seduces.

Blue is an invitation to get reckless.

Rich, powdery, dangerous, The Void.

Jumping off generates new information. Painting opens the door to life’s patterns. Echoing life’s chaotic beauty, her sources can be linked to pop music, Rimbault, Jungian psychology, the theory of correspondences, Minimalist and decorative art.

Fagan is the inventor of the Reverse Color Organ and the ColorSoundGrammar Game, two projects that enable viewers to interact aurally with color. In collaboration with web architect Joshie Fishbein, the Reverse Color Organ is a web app, downloadable to a smartphone, thus placing this synaesthetic tool into peoples’ hands to be used, not only to expand the language of color, but also as a crowd-sourced musical instrument.

Fagan exhibits her work extensively throughout New England and New York City. In 2014 she expanded her independent curatorial practice into a full-time business and is now the owner of ODETTA Gallery in Bushwick, Brooklyn. There, she maintains her painting studio and is an active member of this vibrant arts community.

Find original Ellen Hackl Fagan paintings and drawings on 1stDibs.

(Biography provided by ODETTA Gallery)

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Artist: Ellen Hackl Fagan
Ellen Hackl Fagan, Orbs, 2016, acrylic on casein paper, meditative, spiritual
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Ellen Hackl Fagan makes her paintings by pouring paint around the forms of commonplace, mass-produced objects placed on wet sheets of paper or panels – little fruit cartons, fragment...
Category

2010s Abstract Expressionist Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Ink, Acrylic, Rag Paper

Ellen Hackl Fagan, Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue_In Stride_Abstraction_Blue
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Ellen Hackl Fagan makes her paintings by pouring paint around the forms of commonplace, mass-produced objects placed on wet sheets of paper or panels – little fruit cartons, fragment...
Category

2010s Abstract Expressionist Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Synthetic Paper, Ink, Panel

Ellen Hackl Fagan, Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue_Bottled_2004_acrylic, ink
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue is a series of larger paintings on 8 ply museum board and large sheets of rag paper and clayboard panels that have been created since the winter of 2...
Category

Early 2000s Color-Field Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Acrylic, Panel, Pigment, Ink

Ellen Hackl Fagan, Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue_Air, 2020, Minimalism
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue is a series of paintings on large sheets of rag paper that have been created since January of 2014. Using domestic construction materials from her ...
Category

2010s Minimalist Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Paper, Acrylic, Pigment

Ellen Hackl Fagan, Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue_North Country_2020_
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue is a series of larger paintings on 8 ply museum board and large sheets of rag paper and clayboard panels that have been created since the winter of 2...
Category

2010s Color-Field Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Acrylic, Panel, Pigment

Ellen Hackl Fagan, Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue_Bliss_4_2020_Color Field
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue is a series of larger paintings on 8 ply museum board and large sheets of rag paper and clayboard panels that have been created since the winter of 2...
Category

2010s Color-Field Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Acrylic, Panel, Pigment

Ellen Hackl Fagan, Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue_Bliss_3_2020_Color Field
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue is a series of larger paintings on 8 ply museum board and large sheets of rag paper and clayboard panels that have been created since the winter of 2...
Category

2010s Color-Field Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Acrylic, Panel, Pigment

Ellen Hackl Fagan, Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue_Bliss_1_2020_Color Field
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue is a series of larger paintings on 8 ply museum board and large sheets of rag paper and clayboard panels that have been created since the winter of 2...
Category

2010s Color-Field Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Acrylic, Panel, Pigment

Ellen Hackl Fagan, Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue_Air Capture_2020_Color Field
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue is a series of larger paintings on 8 ply museum board and large sheets of rag paper and clayboard panels that have been created since the winter of 2...
Category

2010s Color-Field Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Panel, Acrylic, Pigment

Ellen Hackl Fagan, Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue_Blue Glaze, 2018, Minimalist
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue is a series of larger paintings on 8 ply museum board and large sheets of rag paper that have been created since the winter of 2016. Using domestic...
Category

2010s Minimalist Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Rag Paper, Pigment, Ink, Acrylic

Ellen Hackl Fagan, Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue_Space Craft, 2017, Minimalis
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue is a series of larger paintings on 8 ply museum board and large sheets of rag paper that have been created since the winter of 2016. Using domestic...
Category

2010s Minimalist Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Paper, Ink, Acrylic, Pigment

Ellen Hackl Fagan, Primer, 2001, Cotton Canvas, Acrylic Paint, Graphite
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Ellen Hackl Fagan creates works of art focused on building a visual language. Primer is a large acrylic on canvas painting that was painted during the attacks on NYC on 9/11. She used the alphabet as a metaphor, as a way towards communicating anew with one another. The alphabet is a recurring theme in Fagan's work, ranging from interactive, ColorSoundGrammar works to painting, sculpture, lost languages...
Category

Early 2000s Expressionist Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Cotton Canvas, Acrylic, Graphite

Ellen Hackl Fagan, Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue_20 Moons, 2014, Enamel, Ink
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Ellen Hackl Fagan is an interdisciplinary abstract painter who believes that synaesthesia can be taught. Through interactive tools and crowd sourcing, Fagan is developing a correspo...
Category

2010s Abstract Expressionist Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Enamel

Ellen Hackl Fagan, Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue_Big Blue_2020
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue is a series of larger paintings on 8 ply museum board and large sheets of rag paper that have been created since the winter of 2016. Using domestic...
Category

2010s Color-Field Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Paper, Ink, Acrylic, Pigment

Ellen Hackl Fagan, Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue_Iceland_2020_Color Field
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue is a series of larger paintings on 8 ply museum board and large sheets of rag paper and clayboard panels that have been created since the winter of 2...
Category

2010s Color-Field Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Acrylic, Panel, Pigment

Ellen Hackl Fagan, ColorSoundGrammar_3 2010, Abstraction, Meditative
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Inviting the accidental while painting, the artist's materials continue to reveal limitless possibilities for improvisation, like jazz music. Influenced by scientific theories-both real and imagined, kitsch, music, decorative art and indigenous textiles, Fagan's abstract paintings and interactive performance build connections between color and surface to sound. This exploration has led to creating a series of interactive games with viewers, the most recent being The Alphabet Game. To play, viewers select, from colored squares, the color(s) that best represent each note in the familiar ABC Song melody. Through these playful interventions their thoughts about color and music are explored in-depth. Documenting their responses in the form of photographs and notes in journals, Fagan has compiled the results of fifteen artists who played the Alphabet Game during a lecture on color where the artist was the guest presenter in order to create this particular painting. Fagan distilled the data gathered and painted this visualization of a color/sound alphabet based on the colors selected by this artist's group. These alphabet paintings introduce a wonderful completion to this pseudo-scientific investigation and celebrate painting...
Category

2010s Conceptual Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Enamel

Ellen Hackl Fagan_Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue_Paver 2_2020_found object
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue is a series of paintings and sculptures that have been created since the spring of 2014. Using domestic construction materials from her garage, ext...
Category

2010s Arte Povera Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Concrete

Ellen Hackl Fagan_Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue_Paver 1_2020_found object
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue is a series of paintings and sculptures that have been created since the spring of 2014. Ellen Hackl Fagan_SeekingtheSoundofCobaltBlue_Found Object...
Category

2010s Arte Povera Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Concrete

Ellen Hackl Fagan_Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue_Paver 3_2020_found object
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue is a series of paintings and sculptures that have been created since the spring of 2014. Using domestic construction materials from her garage, ext...
Category

2010s Arte Povera Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Concrete

Ellen Hackl Fagan, Arc, 2006, Enamel, Ink, Acrylic
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Ellen Hackl Fagan is an interdisciplinary abstract painter who uses synaesthesia, digital media and interactive performance as tools for developing a corresponding language between color and sound in her work. Focused in on the core concept in her abstract work, Fagan began creating a small series of works titled ColorSoundGrammar. This series explores the nature of printmaking processes, texture and surface using everyday materials as stamping elements. Ellen Hackl Fagan is the inventor of The Reverse Color...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Expressionist Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Acrylic Polymer, Ink, Acrylic

Ellen Hackl Fagan_Technicolor Bubble Wrap II_2020_paint, ink, plaster
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue is a series of paintings and sculptures that have been created since the spring of 2014. Using domestic construction materials from her garage, ext...
Category

2010s Arte Povera Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Ink, Acrylic, Pigment, Plaster

Ellen Hackl Fagan, Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue_Harlem, 2014, Ink, acrylic
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Ellen Hackl Fagan is an interdisciplinary abstract painter who believes that synaesthesia can be taught. Through interactive tools and crowd sourcing, Fagan is developing a correspo...
Category

2010s Abstract Expressionist Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Panel, Pigment, Ink, Acrylic

Ellen Hackl Fagan, CSG_M-2, 2011, Enamel, Ink, Acrylic Paint 12 x 12 x 2 inches
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
ColorSoundGrammar Ellen Hackl Fagan There is a long history of sound/color synaesthesia work, from Isaac Newton’s color organ to Alexander Scriabin’s “Prometheus,” but not much wor...
Category

2010s Conceptual Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Enamel

Ellen Hackl Fagan, Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue_Grasslands II, 2018
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue is a series of larger paintings on 8 ply museum board and large sheets of rag paper that have been created since the winter of 2016. Using domestic...
Category

2010s Abstract Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Metal, Enamel

Ellen Hackl Fagan, Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue_Yellow Static I, 2017
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue is a series of larger paintings on 8 ply museum board and large sheets of rag paper that have been created since the winter of 2016. Using domestic...
Category

2010s Abstract Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Rag Paper, Ink, Acrylic, Pigment

Ellen Hackl Fagan, Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue_Yellow Static II, 2017
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue is a series of larger paintings on 8 ply museum board and large sheets of rag paper that have been created since the winter of 2016. Using domestic...
Category

2010s Abstract Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Ink, Acrylic, Rag Paper, Pigment

Ellen Hackl Fagan, Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue_Winter_2017
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue is a series of larger paintings on 8 ply museum board and large sheets of rag paper that have been created since the winter of 2016. Using domestic...
Category

2010s Abstract Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Paper, Ink, Acrylic, Pigment

Ellen Hackl Fagan, Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue_Fence Capture, Abstract
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue is a series of larger paintings on 8 ply museum board and large sheets of rag paper that have been created since the winter of 2016. Using domestic...
Category

2010s Minimalist Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Ink, Acrylic, Pigment, Paper

Ellen Hackl Fagan, Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue_Beach Walk, 2018
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue is a series of larger paintings on 8 ply museum board and large sheets of rag paper that have been created since the winter of 2016. Using domestic...
Category

2010s Abstract Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Ink, Acrylic, Pigment, Paper

Ellen Hackl Fagan, Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue_Grasslands II, 2018
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue is a series of larger paintings on 8 ply museum board and large sheets of rag paper that have been created since the winter of 2016. Using domestic...
Category

2010s Abstract Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Paper, Ink, Acrylic, Pigment

Ellen Hackl Fagan, Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue_Tile Capture II, 2016
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue is a series of larger paintings on 8 ply museum board and large sheets of rag paper that have been created since the winter of 2016. Using domestic...
Category

2010s Abstract Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Paper, Ink, Acrylic, Pigment

Ellen Hackl Fagan, Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue_Tile Capture I, 2016
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Seeking the Sound of Cobalt Blue is a series of larger paintings on 8 ply museum board and large sheets of rag paper that have been created since the winter of 2016. Using domestic...
Category

2010s Abstract Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Paper, Ink, Acrylic, Pigment

Ellen Hackl Fagan, Molecules of Music, 2014, Enamel, Acrylic, Clay Board
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Ellen Hackl Fagan creates works of art focused on building a visual language. Molecules of Music is a large acrylic painting based on crowd sourced input of viewers pairing sounds from the Do Re Mi musical scale to colors. 260 people submitted their opinions on color to sound matches. Language is a recurring theme in Fagan's work, ranging from interactive, ColorSoundGrammar works to painting, sculpture, lost languages...
Category

2010s Abstract Geometric Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Enamel

Ellen Hackl Fagan, ColorSoundGrammar_ASOG, 2010, Enamel, Latex, Ink, Graphite
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Inviting the accidental while painting, the artist's materials continue to reveal limitless possibilities for improvisation, like jazz music. Influenced by scientific theories-both real and imagined, kitsch, music, decorative art and indigenous textiles, Fagan's abstract paintings and interactive performance build connections between color and surface to sound. This exploration has led to creating a series of interactive games with viewers, the most recent being The Alphabet Game. To play, viewers select, from colored squares, the color(s) that best represent each note in the familiar ABC Song melody. Through these playful interventions their thoughts about color and music are explored in-depth. Documenting their responses in the form of photographs and notes in journals, Fagan has compiled the results of fifteen artists who played the Alphabet Game during a lecture on color where the artist was the guest presenter in order to create this particular painting. Fagan distilled the data gathered and painted this visualization of a color/sound alphabet based on the colors selected by this artist's group. These alphabet paintings introduce a wonderful completion to this pseudo-scientific investigation and celebrate painting...
Category

2010s Conceptual Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Enamel

Ellen Hackl Fagan, Molecules of Music_Aquajet_Removed, 2014, Ink, Rag Paper
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Interdisciplinary abstract painter Ellen Hackl Fagan's focus is on developing a corresponding language between color and sound

. MoleculesofMusic encompasses the development of a...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Rag Paper, Ink

Ellen Hackl Fagan, Molecules of Music_Aqua, 2014, Ink, Rag Paper
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Interdisciplinary abstract painter Ellen Hackl Fagan's focus is on developing a corresponding language between color and sound

. MoleculesofMusic encompasses the development of an ...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Ink, Rag Paper

Ellen Hackl Fagan, Dusk, 2006, Enamel, Ink, Acrylic, Aluminum
By Ellen Hackl Fagan
Located in Darien, CT
Ellen Hackl Fagan is an interdisciplinary abstract painter who uses synaesthesia, digital media and interactive performance as tools for developing a corresponding language between color and sound in her work. Focused in on the core concept in her abstract work, Fagan began creating a small series of works titled ColorSoundGrammar. This series explores the nature of printmaking processes, texture and surface using everyday materials as stamping elements. Ellen Hackl Fagan is the inventor of The Reverse Color...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Expressionist Ellen Hackl Fagan Paintings

Materials

Acrylic Polymer, Ink, Acrylic

Ellen Hackl Fagan paintings for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Ellen Hackl Fagan paintings available for sale on 1stDibs. If you’re browsing the collection of paintings to introduce a pop of color in a neutral corner of your living room or bedroom, you can find work that includes elements of blue, purple, orange and other colors. You can also browse by medium to find art by Ellen Hackl Fagan in acrylic paint, paint, synthetic resin paint and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 21st century and contemporary and is mostly associated with the abstract style. Not every interior allows for large Ellen Hackl Fagan paintings, so small editions measuring 6 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Deborah Bigeleisen, Bernd Haussmann, and Maura Segal. Ellen Hackl Fagan paintings prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $750 and tops out at $32,400, while the average work can sell for $2,640.

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