John Bukaty brings more than just color to the Park City Song Summit

The well-known visual artist John Bukaty takes over his role as Park City Song Summit Seriously, artist in residence.

“First and foremost, I’m there to provide art to the musicians,” he said. “I’m a collaborator, a co-creator and a facilitator for these musicians to create visual art.”

Song Summit attendees will have the opportunity to meet Bukaty and see her in action during the three-day event from August 15 to 17 at Canyons Village.

“At some point I will be painting live and then I will be at my creative station creating art in real time,” he said.

Live painting will begin during the event’s opening gala, when Bukaty will paint a painting during the program, similar to what he did last year during singer-songwriter Lukas Nelson’s event.is employed.

“There was a magic that came from the atmosphere and the calm,” said the painter. “There were no interruptions and we delved even deeper into this connection and unity.”

Bukaty’s idea to paint live during performances was born 23 years ago in a brewpub in Kansas City.

“I realized I’m more of an extroverted studio guy than an introverted one, and I felt inspired when I was at shows,” he said. “So I tried to kind of embrace that.”

Bukaty, who has since attended events such as the Super Bowl, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and the American Century Celebrity Golf Championship, believes that people attending concerts and other events are looking for a community experience.

“It’s a unity, this moment we experience when we’re not in our heads but dancing in our bodies, and somewhere in the middle of my process, looking to paint in time with the musician, I literally try to paint as fast as they play the music,” he said. “I find this distinctive presence that I don’t achieve anywhere else. I’m completely present, mimicking or imitating live music as a painter. And that allows me to have a magic carpet ride, so to speak.”

The works Bukaty creates during the Park City Song Summit will be sold and auctioned to benefit the Song Summit Foundation.a non-profit organization dedicated to the well-being of musicians.

“I am a facilitator for the foundation because music has its own language and I try to translate that by describing the music through colors and shapes,” he said. “Musicians make music and I create visual art from that music. The visual art is sold and the money is used by the foundation to help these and other musicians take care of their mental health.”

Bukaty’s role at the Park City Song Summit came about through his friendship with Song Summit founder Ben Anderson.

“I’ve known Ben for 10 years and we met through our sobriety and I think we’re both public about it,” Bukaty said. “We had and still have music and the Grateful Dead in common and Ben always liked what I did.”

Bukaty has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for organizations such as the YMCA, American Cancer Society, Community Service League, SPCA and Halo Foundation.

He discovered his path to fine art at the age of three.

“It wasn’t necessarily what I created, but the way I looked at things,” he said. “I stared at everything. We had a marble mosaic on the floor of our entry room and I just stared at it and was fascinated by the patterns.”

As he grew older, Bukaty learned that others saw things differently than he did.

“They don’t pay attention to the textures, patterns and workmanship of the things I’ve seen,” he said. “And when I told people what I’d seen, they said, ‘You have a strange way of looking at the world.'”

This keen perception, which Bukaty calls his “third eye,” lit up when he heard music.

“I would say there is a connection between my third eye and what I have, called synesthesia,” he said.

According to Bukaty, synesthesia is a perceptual property in which the stimulation of one sense enables an experience through another sense.

“I see colors when I listen to music,” he said. “And the more often that happens, the more detached I am from my body. And that fascinates me.”

Bukaty, who owned and operated three art galleries and whose work was collected by celebrities such as Matthew McConaughey, Penelope Cruz, JJ Cale and John Popper, captures the colors of music using acrylic paints.

“It dries quickly and is safer than oils, which is better in public areas,” he said. “It’s like water to motor oil. If I spilled water, it would get everywhere, but we could dry it. If I spilled motor oil, it would make an even bigger mess when cleaning up.”

Over the course of his career, Bukaty – who cites Michelangelo, MC Escher, Thomas Hart Benton, Picasso and the Beatles as his influences – has traveled to India, Ireland and Mexico to create his work and share it through his paintings, sculptures, poetry and clothing.

“There was a time when I was obsessed with experiences, but I don’t know if I was using my art to experience the world or if I was experiencing art through different places in the world,” he said. “Today, that doesn’t matter anymore, because for me it’s about the experience. And that goes back to the desire to be present in the moment.”