Blue Plate Special, Private Collection of the Ferndale Public Library.
I reside in two worlds. One as a composer of music and one as a composer of art. Growing up in Detroit in the 1960s, I was serenaded by many forms of music and I specially soaked up modern jazz and American classics. In my 20’s, I performed as a lead singer in a rhythm and blues band and toured nationally. That propelled me to an award-winning career as a composer and performer of jazz and soul music. I’ve recorded six albums and eight singles and have performed throughout the United States and internationally from Beijing to London. Since 2014, I have become an interdisciplinary artist, merging music and creating improvisational art on the stage, a presentation that blends my two loves, singing and painting. I am self taught, both as an artist and as a vocalist/composer. I hear color and see sound and translate them both onto the canvas. Whether composing music, or creating visual art, different periods of Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Thelonius Monk, the Jazz Crusaders, Roy Eyers and Donald Byrd, inform my technique allowing me the space in which to improvise what I am hearing, onto the canvas. I also channel modern-day innovators such as Esperanza Spalding ,Robert Glasper and Kamasi Washington. Immersing myself in their work helps elevate me to a place where I can let my own voice come through. All of these artists and the like, have influenced and inspired my music compositions and my visual artwork and helps guide me when collaborating with others. I carry that creative fervor into my private life, as I mentor students in the creative arts.KATHY KOSINS JAZZ IN THE ABSTRACT
Kathy Kosins is an interdisciplinary artist and a master of improvisation. Her art quite literally translates from stage to canvas. She may be best known for her successful career as a critically acclaimed jazz and soul artist, yet all the while Kosins has been quietly gaining ground in the modern art world as well.
“For me, art and music are one in the same,” Kosins says. “There’s no separation and there never has been.” Self-taught as musician, composer and visual artist, Kosins creates abstract acrylic paintings on canvas. A mid-century modern aesthetic has long inspired her work. Cubist and surrealist artists of the 1950s and 1960s inform her technique.
Kosins never studied art or music. Still, she’s made a decades-long career in those fields. “My artwork is total improvisation,” she says. “There is no preconceived composition.” At most, Kosins may choose a color palette ahead of time. She believes in creating art when the moment strikes. That is exactly how she began painting from a live music stage.
Those who have had the opportunity to see Kosins perform - and paint on stage - know it’s a rarity. Kosins often says she “hears color and sees sound,” a condition known as synesthesia. As the band continues to play an impromptu instrumental on stage, she applies color and strokes - each inspired visually by the interpretation of the music. The end result is an abstraction of the music being played.
Kosins is passionate about making art. Enough so that she created a clinic to guide aspiring or professional artists through the process itself. Titled, “Improvisation on Canvas,” Kosins has taught courses to students of all ages - at high schools, performing arts schools, colleges and continuing education courses across the country.
Kosins’ commissioned paintings are held in private collections thought out the US and Europe.
Copyright © 2021 Kathy Kosins
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