2011
solo project
susanne vielmetter gallery
los angeles
striations was shot on 16mm film with artist mary simpson, and was transferred to video for exhibition. it was first shown in my exhibition “stone’s throw” at susanne vielmetter gallery, as well as the sculpture center in ny. the film is part of a larger body of work that includes painting, drawing and sculpture – all related to a group of unfinished stone sculpture carved by my grandmother. many of the works used a quote by henry moore that i found in my grandmother’s sculpture studio; which i used to generate scores – determining the process of making. as an example, i used the vowel structure of the moore text to determine the arrangements and lengths of the colored ink marks upon the surface of the film, and similarly using the sequence of the letters a-g in his text to determine various sound actions (in both the film and the accompanying sound work).
the film attempts to use fragments of “stilled” information whose meanings are unknown or unresolved, so the film is also an attempt allow stilled things to become active again. the imagery includes my grandmother’s half carved stones, her reference materials (an image of a bird that i placed in a tree) and artifacts of her practice, such as the crayons used in the rubbings.
the film has a duration of 6 minutes and is silent.
the film unabashedly gleans inspiration from dennis oppenheim’s early films, gary beydler’s hand held day, and an early film by jess that suggested a victorian magic lantern show.