Ellen Banks Translates the Architecture of Sound into Paint at Galerie Sara Lily Perez
Ellen Banks, Scherzo key of E, 2012. Encaustic on wood, 91.5 x 60.5 cm. Courtesy Ellen Banks Archive, Berlin [EB 23-460]Notation on paper is usually destined to be heard, but for American artist Ellen Banks (1938–2017), the score was fundamentally an architectural blueprint for the eye. Opening this November at Galerie Sara Lily Perez inside Bikini Berlin, Reading Music offers a rare, focused encounter with an artist who spent over three decades dissecting the compositions of Chopin, Bartók, Clara Schumann, Thelonious Monk, and Duke Ellington—not by listening, but by reading their structural DNA and translating it into vibrant geometric reality.
“I often say that a musician takes the score and makes a performance, while I take the score and make a painting.” — Ellen Banks
Ellen Banks, Gavotte – Bartok #3 M6, 2011. Encaustic on canvas on wood, 100.5 x 75.5 cm. Courtesy Ellen Banks Archive, Berlin [EB 24-552]Trained initially as a classical pianist before studying painting at the Massachusetts College of Art and Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts School, Banks made a radical conceptual shift in 1981. Moving past subjective auditory interpretation, she began working strictly from sheet music. Measures, key signatures, rests, and note values were systematically transposed into chromatic grids, rhythmic intervals, and sharp planar balances. Her titles directly trace this rigorous cartography: Monk m22 pg. 29 charts measure 22 on page 29; Chopin #54 Scherzo m17 E dissects measure 17.
Spanning around two dozen works predominantly created between the late 1990s and the 2010s, Reading Music brings together layered encaustic paintings—where hot wax and saturated pigment hold the tactile cadence of sound—alongside circular tondo canvases from her Rondo series, expansive mixed-media compositions, and intimate studies on wood. Influenced by her time in Amsterdam studying under De Stijl scholar Hans L. C. Jaffé, Banks’ work commands a rare balance: mathematical discipline intertwined with radiant painterly warmth.
Ellen Banks, Longo 427, n.d. Mixed media on canvas, 91.5 x 91.5 cm. Courtesy Ellen Banks Archive, Berlin [EB 23-434]Under the terms of Banks’ will, her estate relocated nearly in its entirety to Berlin, where the Ellen Banks Archive in Spandau has been preserving and contextualising her legacy since 2022. Following her major 2025 retrospective mood indigo at ZAK – Zentrum für Aktuelle Kunst inside Zitadelle Spandau, this new exhibition inside City West provides an essential, intimate survey of an avant-garde master whose brushstrokes mapped the invisible pulse of modern composition.
Ellen Banks, Bacewicz Rondino M2, n.d. Encaustic on canvas, 60 x 60 cm. Courtesy Ellen Banks Archive, Berlin [EB 23-356]Exhibition: Reading Music
Artist: Ellen Banks (1938–2017)
Venue: Galerie Sara Lily Perez @galerieslp
Location: Bikini Berlin, 1st Floor, Budapester Straße 48, 10787 Berlin
Dates: 27 November 2026 – 21 January 2027
Vernissage: Friday, 27 November 2026, 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm (Live music at 7:00 pm)
