Danijel Zezelj, painting
Jessica Lurie, composition, saxophone, accordion, voice
Marika Hughes, cello
Todd Sickafoose, acoustic bass

Created during Gardner After Hours on June 17, ONCE is a dynamic act of live narration, using sound and image as the language of expression. The performance was built on an interchange between music and painting, merging the rhythm and time of the music with the volume and space of the painting. In the special exhibition gallery a series of acrylic paintings were created in front of an audience, with the images evolving and disappearing one over the next—a visual metamorphosis set to music. The entire process was photographed every 10-20 seconds by a fixed camera and the music digitally recorded. The hundreds of photos were then digitally edited with excerpts of the recorded music into a short animated movie and installed in the gallery alongside the final stage of the painting. The video-audio recording remains the only permanent presentation of the creative process - already transformed and edited into a different form. ONCE explores the quality of time, space and memory, challenging the idea of permanence of any physical object (painting) and space (gallery). The erasing of the finished paintings assigns them the temporary dimension of music. The original music and paintings belong to the memory of viewers.

ONCE is a tribute and reflection on the power of constant change and the fragility of remembrance. This live action painting performance to music marks the closing of the Special Exhibition Gallery, which over the past twenty years has seen twenty-seven contemporary exhibitions.

About the Artists

Painter and graphic novelist Daniel Zezelj lived and worked at the Gardner Museum as an Artist-in-Residence in 2004. During that time he created a story called “Princess” about the museum and included it in his graphic novel Stray Dogs. The illustrations created for the graphic novel were presented as an exhibition at the Gardner in 2005. More recently, Zezelj presented two performances at the museum: The Hunger Artist and Small Hands. Zezelj is the author of the Gardner After Hours visual identity.

Jessica Lurie performs and records worldwide with her group The Jessica Lurie Ensemble; the Seattle jazz-funk trio Living Daylights; and the all-woman sax and drums quartet The Tiptons. With visual artist Danijel Zezelj she has co-created 9 multi-media performances, presented in Italy, Croatia, and the United States. She has collaborated with a number of national artists; composed for international ensembles, dance, film and multi-media performances; and led workshops around the world on improvisation and composition.

Bassist/composer Todd Sickafoose hails from the San Francisco East Bay, where the consistency of his personal voice within wildly diverse collaborations prompted LA Weekly to call him "one of the most comprehensive musical minds of this coast". After studying with Charlie Haden, performing for years with Ani DiFranco, and generally straddling the worlds of jazz and indie-rock, he firmly united the two in his highly-praised 2008 record Tiny Resistors (Cryptogramophone).

Marika Hughes, a native New Yorker, spent many years living and performing in the Bay Area in California. She returned to New Yorkin 2006 and has been enjoying playing with some of her favorite musicians including Toshi Regan, Imani Uzuri, Amy Correia, and Charlie Burnham. Hughes will release a solo cello CD as well as a CD of songs with her band in late 2010.