John Yau visits the studio of artist Marilyn Lerner. Marilyn Lerner: Circle in the Square is on view at the Butler Gallery, The Castle, Kilkenny, Ireland, through October 5, 2014,

Yau writes: "For Lerner, colors and shapes, particularly the circle, are synonymous with musical notes and vibrations. While she is considered a geometric abstractionist, I would align her work with a more archetypal strain that begins with Hilma af Klint and includes Rudolph Bauer, Leo Kenney and Charmion Von Wiegand. For these artists, the circle, which is a universal symbol found in nearly all cultures, is a form to be both rediscovered and made fresh… In her melding of color and shape with sound, Lerner’s work might also arise out synesthetic perceptions. Like the Russian composer and pianist, Alexander Scriabin, who developed an atonal scale in which specific sounds and colors were linked, Lerner connects colors with sounds, though not in any systematic manner. It is important to point out, however, that these are associations rather than influences, and that Lerner developed her basic vocabulary of forms and her sense of color long before she learned of the work of Klint."