Live painting at concerts: painting takes the stage

Painting as a stage performance

Giulia sets up her easel on the stage or at its edge, and paints while the musicians play. She has painted during piano concerts, in theatres and at music events: a singer alone with a guitar, a band, a DJ, a rapper, a quartet, an orchestra, each line-up gives her a different painting, and that is the very principle of the performance. When the format calls for it, she prepares the composition before the date; on stage, she lets what she hears carry her, and the blank canvas fills as the set moves on.

The canvas is revealed to the audience at the end, and it is the natural finale of the concert. Then people come close, take the time to look, photograph the still-fresh paint. What becomes of the painting is decided with you, at the quote stage: the organiser keeps it as a memento of the date, the artist keeps or gifts it, or it sells that same evening, at auction or to someone in the audience. For a musician, a label or a booking agent, the canvas painted during the concert becomes a tour image, a poster, a piece to give, and Giulia can be booked for one date as for several, adapting to each venue’s technical rider.

If the organiser is after a theatrical effect, Giulia can paint the canvas upside down and turn it round only at the end: the audience follows her hand and the music, and the subject appears all at once as the canvas is flipped. It is a finale the room photographs, and it is planned at the quote stage.

The practical side for organisers

She needs a stable square of about two metres, on the stage or right beside it, power within reach, and a light on the canvas so the audience can see it from the room; in a club or in the open air a small lamp is enough if the stage is dark. She comes with her easel, canvases, acrylics and brushes, covers the floor around her and is ready before the doors open.

Three ways to place the performance, to settle with you and the stage manager at the quote stage: through the whole set, the canvas advancing song by song; over a few pieces chosen with the musicians; or as continuous creation during a festival, between the stages. Filming is a good idea: a phone on a tripod is enough, and the time-lapse of the canvas filling up becomes content the venue, the band and the audience share after the date. Giulia positions herself in agreement with the stage manager and the image team, and the finished painting lends itself to end-of-concert photos.

The venues and the stages

Giulia travels to the stages and venues of Europe: the Arena di Verona, the Théâtre de Verdure in Nice, the Saint-Michel parvis in Menton, the Roman theatre in Orange, piazza Napoleone in Lucca, the Ippodromo delle Capannelle in Rome, Fiera Milano Live in Rho, and the sand of Cannes for Les Plages Électroniques.

The Menton Music Festival was born on an August evening in 1949: the impresario André Böröcz heard, on the empty parvis of the Saint-Michel basilica, Bach’s second partita played by Jascha Heifetz, coming out of a radio set on a windowsill. The festival was created the following year and has been held there for more than seventy-five years. Giulia paints on stages like these, in time with the music, and the signed canvas stays with the promoter or leaves with the artist on the bill. From €400, free quote within 48 hours.