Kevin Gilmore
focusonus
2- channel sound installation / 5’53” loop; player piano paper rolls, plaster, epoxy resin, walnut ink, gold leaf, speakers, speaker wire, amplifier, media player, field recordings
18 x 48 x 12 in.
2025
Combining deep listening as a practice, modular synthesis, and a systems approach to composition, Kevin Gilmore created "focusonus" in response to the idea of "paying attention" in a culture that is constantly increasing the amount of visual and sonic information coming at us from all directions. It is a chance to experience moments of frenetic granular synthesis, and a cessation of those sounds, in moments of quiet and meditation. Fragmented sounds of reading Thich Nhat Hanh (“mindfulness brings concentration, concentration brings insight”) out loud combine with scrolling social media with a backdrop of tones and harmonics sampled from family life.
The vessels are playfully constructed with player piano rolls and plaster, like a child making a science fair volcano, or making drippy sandcastles at the beach -100% present, immersed, with full attention. A quiet nod to the idea of wabi-sabi, or kintsugi can be found in the gold leafing. Speakers lowered into the vessels emit the looping sounds, and are conspicuously attached to the electronic media, intentionally left out in the open in contrast to the organic forms. Speaker wires become line drawings in the space between the vessels.
“focusonus” can read as word play - focus on us, focus onus, focus sonus. An artist/father recording and making sonic art in a home with a wife and two children…the onus is on the individual to control where their attention is held…sonus = Latin for noise/sound, focus on a sound (ie. Wife practicing piano, making dinner, kids playing outside)
Sound is hard to contain. Sonic occurrences outside the home trickle in through open windows, sounds of family life unavoidably permeate to the outside world.
Artist Bio
Kevin Gilmore is an interdisciplinary artist working as a painter, experimental sound composer, and educator. Originally from Rhode Island, he spent over a decade exploring the landscapes of Wyoming, Oregon, Italy, and Brooklyn. As an abstract visual artist working with collage, acrylic and oils, the sense of place becomes the subject of his abstract canvases. Gilmore works with sound as a medium, composing experimental soundscapes from field recordings, acousmatics through contact microphones, digital instruments and analogue synthesizers. His teaching philosophy has developed through a similar intuitive process, with experience leading workshops and teaching undergraduate art classes. After starting a family in NYC, Kevin returned to his native state... as Rhode Islanders often do. His interdisciplinary art practice is located close to the sea where he also lives with his wife, two children and his dog.
B.A. Fine Art - University of Rhode Island - 1999
M.F.A. Visual Arts - Vermont College of Fine Arts, Montpelier, VT - 2019