Pondering

I have been aching for a long time to get back into producing my own self-indulgent animation but like many folk looking to make something personally relevant, I find it very hard to generate and hone in on a theme that really makes my fingers twitch to get started. Much as Anselm Kiefer said in 1990,

"The works are but aspects or traces of a theme that in human concepts, in language is not representable. All of painting, but also literature and everything that it is connected to, is always but a circling around something unsayable, around a black hole or a crater, whose centre one cannot penetrate."

In an attempt to figure out how to make sense of the abstracts in my head and find a unifying thread to work with, I began to collect images for the last few years, that I felt gravitated towards this sparkly shadowy creature that lurked in my head but refused to tell me its name. 

Funnily enough, I started to realize what I wanted to pursue when I saw the handing over ceremony from London to Rio for the upcoming 2016 Olympic Ceremony. It reminded me of this musician Mitar Subotic and the track Sereia (Mermaid) When I hear that kind of music, it instantly conjures up in my head, lavish jungles dripping with iridescent jewel-like dew drops and tropical flowers, nocturnal creatures and curling knotted plants. The images below hover around the realm I'm talking about. When I connected my treasure trove of images with that music, I realized I knew what I was after in an atmospheric sense, I just lack a theme. I have recently had an idea of what I want it to be about, but it requires further stewing. 

"Product of the Earth During the Pliocene Period" Unknown Artist, 1859

  "Temple of Flora" Robert John Thornton, 1807

"Prada Bloom" James Jean, 2007

"Tiger in a Tropical Storm" Henry Rousseau, 1891

"Pools of Light" Apak, 2010

"Edwin and His Cat" Edwin Ushiro, 1990

Visiting London

Kew
Finally got to go to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and as you may guess from the below photos, I enjoyed the Palm House the most. The jumble of bone-like architecture and monstrous tangled plants was beautiful.

The Imperial War Museum

This title should have been Dali's Universe, it was where we were heading but turns out we need new maps as the place had shut down a year and a half ago. Ah well. So we instead went to the IWM which kind of appealed to me for the same reason as the Palm House; once I headed down into the lower exhibition space I got lost in a tangled web of interconnecting rooms and glass lined corridors that seemingly jump between conflicts from different times and corners of the world every few meters. 

On reflection, the relationship between the exhibits was an odd one. It's making me think of Peter Greenaway's film The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover in that you see a grotesque story in an opulent setting; I found myself in a weird state of disgusted awe. In the IWM I would one minute be fascinated by the ornate and clever culturally characterized artifacts carefully illuminated and composed, then I'd turn a corner and be greeted by a corridor of looming stark photographic portraits of the victims of these conflicts with anti-war quotes drifting through them. I was aware through it all, that I was meant to feel this internal conflict, the same way that Greenaway intended to keep his audience fascinated by the elegant violence, the contrast was designed to confuse your reaction. Though the Holocaust exhibition they had in there probably had the most constant language.. I suppose because the Holocaust was a pretty much entirely dehumanized act; there was an inarguable distinction between victim and oppressor; no grey area to stew on or avoid. The silence in that space was thick and sombre and the thinking of the folk that came out was I suspect, fairly unified.  

Here are a couple of images of artworks I found off t'internet that were in the Women War Artists temporary show running alongside the permanent displays. The first I really responded to.. don't want to say 'liked' ha, but the Artist had been commissioned by the IWM to accompany British troops on the QE2 bound for the Falklands, and stayed on with them in their journey far longer then she'd been asked to to record events. She had a note with her saying 'If anything should happen to me - the only important thing to save is the portfolio of drawings please' with a return address attached. There were a few of her sketches in the show, the below one was the only one I could find online from it.. 

"Welsh Guardsmen from the Bridge" Linda Kitson, 1982 

"The Sottish Women's Hospital: In the Cloister of the Abbaye at Royaumont. Dr Frances Ivens inspecting a French patient" Norah Neilson-Gray, 1920

"Human Laundry" Doris Zinkeinsen, 1945 

Vida's Inky Lovelies

Vida Vega was one of the nice folk exhibiting with us at the show in Aim Gallery and of the pieces she had on show, the bit that had me crying over my empty wallet was a cute little framed still taken from her first commissioned short "mi'au, myau"for the "Languages through Lenses" project run by the European Commission. Any animation that shows an effortless symbiosis between handmade and computer tools always gets me excited, and Vida's work does that in ways I covet. I think because I often feel one of the few barriers with animation is the difficulty of retaining spontaneity in the work; everything has to be premeditated to a degree and fresh mark making often emulated rather then just.. being. I tried animating in charcoal once in an attempt to overcome this, but I think Vida's work hits the mark far better. She did this apt little tutorial explaining her animation process for Digital Arts magazine, totally worth a look I'd love to give it a go.. just as soon as I can think of a subject worth animating and have a few days spare to do it..

And on that note will be leaving you with this little vid as I now need to go wash my jeans thanks to an inelegant effort to aim a ham sandwich at my mouth.

Oh and her website is www.vidavega.com fly my pretties! 

Blossom and Wither

So we got the show hung by Thursday morning and I'm pretty happy with the results (just sorting through pics to post), but we got the front page of the MK papers leisure section and a nice inner article which was cool. Doing the poster for the show had me itching to do a series of follow up designs which I haven't really had time for, plan to do 4 but only managed to rework the original and do it a pair. I'm thinking scarlet and coral for the next one. A lot of fun and it's got me in the habit of exploring psd brushes which I used to kind of ignore before.

Oh and if you want to see, here's the film the kids made in the workshops.

Blossom 17th of March to 9th of April

 

We've got a new show on at the Gallery I work in that I've had the super fun job of curating, it's proved a great opportunity to really dig through websites, blogs and portfolios; something I rarely have an excuse to do this extensively. The shows got a range of animators, illustrators, jewelry makers and crafters due to exhibit. Some are well established within their profession, others are new talents just starting out but it's all brilliant! We'll also have the results of the childrens animation workshops on display. It was my first time teaching a young age group and I have to say I knew it was going to be tough, but I hadn't realized how you can never let the ball drop; working with adults, you're allowed to like stop to breathe every now and then! They were all incredibly enthusiastic and really responded to the tasks and maintained their focus all through the day, which I have to say I was impressed with! Anyway, if you fancy seeing some beautiful contemporary artworks and some fun kids animations pop over! 

Seasons Workshops

Hello! Myself and a friend will be doing a series of children's animation workshops here in Milton Keynes during the February half term. There will be four sessions each themed as one of the seasons and the kids task will be to make up stories to depict that season in groups. The clips they produce will be edited together into a final, looped film and viewable at the themed exhibition due to run in March - April. If you'd be interested in booking some places, send me an email at suzeekent@googlemail.com and I'll send you the details.

This is looking to be a great project, spaces are limited though so be swift if you want a place and choice of season
xx

_grau

I read a bit about Robert Seidel in a book on animating but never got round to watching the film til now, go find more here http://robertseidel.com/ or wander through the Experimental Animation website for other lovelies. I would love to try my hand at abstract animating but my head naturally wants to project a narrative onto what I create then analyze the heck out of the structure. Makes fluidity and spontaneity a little elusive.