Tanja Ackerman is an Australian synaesthesia artist based in NSW whose work transforms sensory experience into atmospheric visual worlds. Her practice is anchored in the way sound, nature, and emotions appear within her synaesthesia, not as literal colours or landscapes, but as internal systems, shifting frequencies, and beautiful gradients that exist beneath the surface of ordinary perception.

Rather than illustrating music, Ackerman maps the sensory events that unfold inside her when sound moves through her body and mind. A track may set the initial frequency, but the palette, movement, and emotional resonance that emerge are entirely her own. Her paintings are not depictions of songs; they are portals into the worlds those sounds open within her.

Working primarily in acrylic and mixed media, she builds layered compositions that blend quiet‑luxury palettes, fluid movement, fine detail, and atmospheric depth. Her colours rarely match the physical world, they reflect the internal landscapes of her synaesthesia: violet heat, blue pressure, green hums, soft rose‑grey dissolves. Each piece becomes a form of emotional reality made visible.

Ackerman’s work appeals to collectors seeking contemporary Australian abstraction with a sensory, contemplative edge. Her paintings bring warmth, movement, and a sense of calm to interior spaces, offering viewers a moment of stillness, a place to breathe, feel, and reconnect with their own emotional undercurrents.

Her practice extends into sound, photography, music composition and video, forming immersive environments where art becomes a multi‑sensory experience. Whether responding to nature, memory, or the internal resonance of music, Ackerman’s work invites viewers into a world where the senses blur and atmosphere becomes a form of truth.

An exploration of sound and colour.

NEW WORK

ARIA Soundbytes

One song. One week. One painting -straight from the ARIA charts to my easel.

ARIA Soundbytes is my weekly series where I transform the internal sensory response triggered by a standout track from the ARIA Top 10 into a collectible synaesthesia artwork. Each piece is created on paper, intimate, accessible, and designed for collectors who want to experience the immediacy of my process.

These works don’t depict the songs shaping Australia’s charts. They reveal the worlds those sounds create inside me, the colours, movements, and emotional atmospheres that rise through my synaesthesia when a frequency hits.

This week’s piece: Like A Prayer (acrylic on paper) 27 × 35 cm,

The track was simply the spark. What emerged was a field of deep midnight blue lifting into warm rose, soft lilac, and glowing pink, a slow, rising gradient shaped by the emotion of the sound. Circular forms pulse across the surface like internal echoes, while looping lines drift upward in colours that have nothing to do with the physical world and everything to do with how the music moved through me.

This painting is not just about the song. It’s about the sensory world it opened inside me.

ABOUT THE SERIES

• One new artwork every week

• Inspired by the ARIA No.1 or a Top 10 track

• Acrylic on paper — accessible, affordable, and highly collectible

• Limited weekly releases

• Perfect for music lovers, emerging collectors, and interior designers seeking fresh contemporary work