CAN you capture music in paint? Artist and choir member Alfred Huckett set himself this challenge in his record third residency at this summer's York Early Music Festival, where he spent a fortnight painting and drawing at rehearsals and performances.

The results can be seen in his exhibition The Colour Of Music, on show at the National Centre for Early Music in Walmgate, during the York Early Music Christmas Festival and beyond to the closing date of December 19. Opening hours are 10am to 4pm, Monday to Friday, and before evening concerts.

“I realise that in trying to create ‘portraits of music’, I am attempting the impossible, but my desire to combine the two things most important in my life is very strong,” he says.

Alfred is the only artist to have been asked back so many times by Ann Petherick, from Kentmere House Gallery in Scarcroft Hill, who has collaborated regularly with the festival on the residency scheme.

“Alfred’s approach to the residencies is based on his life-long love of music, and his ongoing involvement as a singer in an early music choir in London,” says Ann.

“Both his work and his presence around the festival have been enjoyed by all concerned, as he immerses himself in the music, the venues, and the interactions with the performers.”

His previous residencies were in 1995 and 2010. “In those years, I worked from relatively figurative ideas, painting musicians in York buildings, and moved on to a freer approach more concerned with the movement of the musicians,” he says.

"Now, depictions of the music itself is the area that interests me: neither abstract nor figurative, but based on the actual piece of music. You do look for different ways of interpreting what you see and hear, but after the last residency, I said to myself, 'no way am I coming back', but I'm here again, looking to find a different way of portraying music, going more towards the abstract."

The task, suggests Alfred, from North London, is to find an analogy between music and painting.

"Some aspects are easier than others; there is rhythm in music as there is rhythm in painting, and you can follow the line of a voice, which can be like a drawn line," he says. "But it's more complicated when you get harmonies and modulations, which suggest different blends of colours."

Alfred listens, paints what he hears and also uses manuscripts to break down music into bars that he can interpret in paint. "I look for repeated patterns in music, which is another device I can capture," he says. "I'm also looking to convey the layering of the voices and yet the clam stillness of the music."

The work has emerged in two forms. "One is drawings, which I worked up in my studio and are more figurative," he says. "The other are oil paintings that I've worked up from manuscripts."

Alfred believes music can be expressed in painting and drawing in a form that viewers will comprehend.

"I've always been taught to look at a painting first, without reading any information around it, because if it's not working visually, it's not working at all," he says. "I know a painting has to be 'read' by people when it's finished and I have to enable people to understand what I'm doing. That's what I must do."

There is a further motivating factor behind his new work. "My partner is becoming deaf and has come to appreciate classical music in the past ten years, and I've often thought it would be nice to paint music for deaf people," he says.

Welcoming Alfred's latest works, festival director Delma Tomlin says: "We always love having Alfred around as he is such an enthusiast for the music, and knows many of the performers. He and his work add another dimension to the festival for all involved and his paintings enable the festival to live on in the minds of its supporters.”

What's more, Alfred's desire to capture music in paint is paying off. Nine works from The Colour Of Music sold at the exhibition's launch evening.