At the forefront of contemporary street art, Argentinian-Spanish artist Felipe Pantone’s murals intersect music and visual art. His large-scale works are doused in colours and designs so bold, they look like hallucinatory holograms whose swirls and checks appear like they’re straight from Alison in Wonderland: by looking at them, you could fall down the rabbit hole. So far, Pantone’s work has featured on monuments across the globe, as well as in an Anderson .Paak music video, and as album artwork for The Strokes’ Julian Casablancas new band, The Voidz. Now, for his latest project, Pantone is collaborating with Ballantine’s to transform live music spaces into a visual-sensory experience that brings music to visual life.
As the latest artist to feature in Ballantine’s True Music Series, a global project committed to spotlighting underground art and music talent from across the globe, Pantone’s work will show in spaces as far as Moscow and Santiago. For the collaboration, Felipe uses underground club culture, music soundwaves and the recording and production process as his muses to create three artworks.
For the live events, the artworks will be connected to sound reactive projectors to create their own equalisers. This audio-visual combination will generate a sensory experience where musicians can witness a visual representation of the music they produce and play within the space. “I’ve always been surrounded by musicians”, explains Pantone, “and collaborating with Ballantine’s – a whisky brand that’s all about music – allowed me to explore a style marked by sound waves and flowing bits, juxtaposed with my signature elements. It’s always a pleasure to work around music artists, the spaces and the fans.” On top of this, his work will also feature as limited edition gift packaging for Ballantine’s Finest and Ballantine’s 12 Year Old (out in October).
Since its conception in 2014, Ballantine’s True Music project has celebrated creativity far and wide, from Lisbon’s emerging music scene, to Africa’s bubbling world of young creatives. The project’s’ past line up has also featured the likes of musicians Seth Troxler and Maya Jane Cole, and artists such as Leif Podhajsky and Dave Ma.