Lauren E. Cassidy

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Lauren E. Cassidy (b. 1997), featured in AQ Volume IV, is an interdisciplinary artist based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She received her Bachelor of Music in Music Therapy from Queens University of Charlotte in 2019 and has been a Music Therapist-Board Certified since 2020. Lauren’s works can be found in private collections throughout the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Her artwork and music compositions have been featured in numerous galleries and museums, including The Mansion at Strathmore, Modern Visual Arts Gallery, The Painting Center, Woodmere Art Museum, and the Smithsonian-affiliated Annmarie Sculpture Garden. In her present work, she focuses on creating works of art that are playable as music compositions and composing music that is best notated as visual art. Lauren’s first solo exhibition will take place at Da Vinci Art Alliance in December 2024.


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What inspired you to become an artist, and how did you decide to commit to this path?

I’ve always been an artist and a musician, and I probably always will be. There are times when I’ve been chasing after one discipline more than the other, but I have always maintained a strong practice in both visual art and music.

The road to becoming a professional artist was, in some ways, accidental. I got better at art simply because I loved it and never stopped making it. Eventually, I started pursuing a professional path because I thought the stepping stones were cool. I applied to my first juried shows because I liked the idea of having my art hanging up somewhere. When I sold my first paintings, I was pleasantly surprised that people would buy them. I composed my first serious pieces of music because I thought it would be fun and interesting, not because I intended to make it a key part of my career. When I decided to combine my art and music into a unified discipline, it came from a genuine place of curiosity and enjoyment.

Along the way, I’ve gotten to show my work in some pretty incredible places! Being an artist and a musician never seemed like a realistic dream until I realized it was already happening.

I’ve had a day job throughout these early parts of my career, and it has given me the opportunity to truly make art and music for myself. While it can be difficult to find studio time, I have the freedom to make and explore whatever interests me. I can’t imagine a life for myself without both music and art, regardless of whatever else might be happening in my life at the same time. I’m going to be making this art anyway, so why not see how far my ambitions can take me?


Could you share the story or concept behind your recent work?

My work is an exploration of relationships between visual art and music composition. I create pieces of art and music that are not merely subjective, but instead direct translations of one another. My artwork can be performed as music, and the music I write can be expressed as visual art. I choose colors based on the relationship between the frequencies of pitches (Hz) and relative frequencies of colors on the visual light spectrum (THz), and I represent time using physical space.

In doing this, I am able to utilize visual mediums to convey musical concepts that would be nearly impossible to express otherwise. I am constantly striving to create a balance between visually and aurally stimulating works that can function independently of one another but are best enjoyed in unison.

I have notated a few famous works and original compositions into color; however, the majority of my compositions are designed to sound different every single time they are performed. This allows for creative expression in both musical and artistic realms and encourages performers to make unique choices when playing each piece.

Recently, I’ve been fascinated by the concept of choice, particularly in music. There are so many rules about how a musician is “allowed” to change a piece of music while still playing in a way that’s acceptable, and I want to play with those rules and expand upon them.

I started down this path because I was interested in finding a way to combine my love for art and music. While I was in college, I had been composing music that was mostly data-based, and I was painting on the side. I already enjoyed using alternative means to create music, and it was really only a matter of time before I found a way to combine my painting and composing into a unified discipline. I decided to double down on my art/music pieces during coronavirus lockdown, and I’m really happy with that choice.


What was the most challenging part of your path so far? How are you navigating this obstacle?

In a word: balance. Balance has absolutely been the most challenging part of this path.

Within my creative practice, it’s been difficult to balance the art and music halves of my work. In a lot of ways, music and art are opposites—art typically deals with changing physical space without a time component, whereas music deals with changing time/sound without altering physical space. The two are inherently opposed, and yet, I’m trying to bring them together anyway.


What role does experimentation and exploration play in your artistic practice?

My best work starts by asking myself an impossible question—what would statistics sound like as music? What would a Bach chorale look like as a painting? How do I accurately translate something time-bound into something space-bound?

While there’s no straightforward, correct answer to these questions, there also aren’t any wrong answers. The only way I can attempt to answer these questions is through experimentation and exploration. I play around with different mediums, instruments, and materials to try to find some kind of solution to the problems I come up with.

Even though I consider myself to be a painter, paint might not be the best medium for the concept I’m trying to explore. Even though I like to write pieces that can be played on a variety of instruments, I might need to narrow my focus on just one.

Lately, I’ve been trying out new materials in the studio. I’ve been enjoying working with different substrates for my artwork and using new painting mediums. I’m even trying out new disciplines like wood carving and printmaking, which I have been having a lot of fun with. I’ve also been playing with the different sounds my instruments can make, and I’ve been listening to genres of music I don’t typically gravitate towards.

I’m using this experimentation as a way to build up a visual and musical vocabulary that I hope will translate into my future works. There’s a whole world of possibility with art and music, and I’ve been enjoying exploring it.


Do you have any start or stop rituals before creating?

Usually, my creative practice begins when my day job ends. I deal with this transition by exercising in some way, even if it’s just a short walk in my neighborhood. I find that it’s helpful in getting my brain out of work mode and into creative mode.

After I get some movement in, I make myself a warm beverage and prepare to spend some time in the studio! Depending on what I’m planning to accomplish for the day, I have an additional warm-up routine of 10-15 minutes each of journaling, musical improvisation, and sketching. I try to be as loose with each of these activities as possible, and I try to let myself do whatever I feel like for the day.

I don’t always have time to spend 30-45 minutes on a warm-up, but when I do, I find that it gets my head and hands in the right space for me to really focus on my work.


What message do you hope your art conveys to the world?

My art is a way for me to express my curiosity about the world, and it gives me a chance to make things that I find to be intellectually stimulating. I like finding connections between seemingly unrelated things. I like creating crazy problems and figuring out how to solve them. I like making new sounds on my instruments and mixing paint in my studio. I like having an art practice that centers around play, curiosity, and problem-solving, and I like that my art is a result of that experimentation.

In a similar way, I hope that my art shows people the limitless opportunity for connection and inspires them to look at the world with more interest and curiosity. For the musicians and artists who experience my work, I hope that they can tap into a sense of play and wonder that they can carry into their own creative practices. For everyone else, I hope that my work sparks curiosity and open-mindedness about the world around them.


Share a mantra or favorite quote that keeps you going.

I had the joy and privilege of working in hospice care as a music therapist for several years. Most of my patients were older adults who passed on their wisdom and lived experiences in the form of stories, songs, and memories. If I had to pick out one piece of advice that I heard on repeat, it would be this: if there’s anything you really want to do in life, you just need to do it.

My patients usually gave me this advice under different contexts—describing trips they wished they had gone on when they were healthier, businesses they should have started, or family members they dreamed of making amends with. Over the years, I found that some of my happiest, most content patients were the ones who chased after the things they wanted in life. It didn’t seem to matter whether or not they succeeded in their ambitions, just that they tried anyway and lived the life they wanted.

I’ve applied this to my creative practice over the years, and I’ve repeated it to myself in challenging times. I really want to make art and music, so I’m making it even if I’m not entirely confident in the result. I’m applying for big opportunities, even if I’m not sure that I’ll get them. I’ve found that there’s never a “good” or “right” time to try anything, but I’m doing it anyway. Ultimately, I would rather completely fail at something than never attempt it at all. The real success is trying in the first place.