The VORTEX Experience

Bringing together music, wine, art and technology

A silent auction win during last year’s County FM fundraising drive by artist and photographer Tara Wilkinson of a music night with Astrid Young has turned into a unique mixture of art, music, wine and technology on now display at ANDARA Gallery. When Ms. Young—who is also a sommelier—visited Ms. Wilkinson and encaustic artist Andrew Csafordi at their gallery to talk about arranging an “intimate house concert”, the discussion soon became larger. The gallery has been a host for the Jazz Festival and the “what ifs” started flowing during that first meeting. “It just grew from there,” said Mr. Csafordi. “It’s all about inspiration, really, and the vortex of coming together for art, music and wine.” Ms. Young was nearing the completion of her latest album, The Beautiful Can Get Away with Murder, and the idea arose of using six of the new songs to inspire paintings and photography, and pair those with six wines from County wineries. It would all be linked together by an NFC (Near Field Communication) chip embedded in each of the paintings and a QR code with the photographs so that visitors to the gallery could listen to the music through their smartphones.

Mr. Csafordi started by listening to the music while reading the lyrics. “It was instantaneous with every single song which line from the lyrics I was going to paint. It was an opportunity for me to go in six new directions. It was very exciting. The paintings are things that I’ve never painted before, but it seemed so natural to go with the music,” he said. Mr. Csafordi is an encaustic painter, using pigmented beeswax to create his artworks. For Ms. Wilkinson, it was Ms. Young herself who inspired her photography. “Astrid is an incredible woman—a strong, ferocious, ass-kicking rocker chick. I asked five other extraordinary County women who moved from elsewhere and now make their lives here if I could do their portraits,” she said. Each portrait is accompanied by a QR code that links to more information about these women.

With her experience as a sommelier, Ms. Young chose the wine pairings for the songs and the artworks. The wines are from The Grange of Prince Edward Winery, Rosehall Run, Closson Chase, Sandbanks, Karlo Estates and Three Dog Winery. The selected wines are on display at each winery, and there’s a smartphone link to the associated music and artworks. All six wines are available at Decanter in Wellington.

Last Friday and Saturday evenings ANDARA Gallery hosted a concert by Ms. Young and her band to launch the VORTEX Experience. “We feel like we’ve created work we’ve never done before. We’ve gone in new directions and it’s been really helpful for us in the last few months to have this to focus on,” said Ms. Wilkinson. ANDARA Gallery is located at 54 Wilson Road, and the exhibit runs until September 7. For more information, please visit andaragallery.com or astridyoung.net