Artist With Synesthesia Can See Music As Colorful Paintings

Synesthesia actually lets you paint with the colors of the wind, if it’s loud enough. This rare neurological phenomenon also enables Melissa McCracken to paint music. Synesthesia means that some of your stimuli are joined in unusual combinations. Melissa actuals experiences music with colors and textures. And paints them! Below is a selection of the songs she listened to (links included) and the paintings she painted.

Melissa didn’t know that anything is amiss till she turned 15 and asked her brother which color “C” was (canary yellow). Yes, besides experiencing music as colors, she has a few other synesthesia “symptoms”: “Each letter and number is colored and the days of the year circle around my body as if they had a set point in space. But the most wonderful “brain malfunction” of all is seeing the music I hear. It flows in a mixture of hues, textures, and movements, shifting as if it were a vital and intentional element of each song.”

It begs the question: are her paintings impressionism, or realistic art?

More info: melissasmccracken.com | Facebook (h/t: boredpanda )