APRIL 2024
…safe travels w/ puppet destruction
hey folks,
groundhog day felt especially relevant this year as my yesterday's obstacles so messily fold into tomorrow's. the whole year seemed like an extensive today...but alas this year's travels helped break up the monotony of constant troubleshooting. i'm designing puppets for a new film which i have yet to discover meaningful vocabulary for. so far, my ramblings include stories like this:
appendages use swift movement economy to preserve energy when escaping temperamental landscapes: a forest of tall, omniscient white hairs that sift through their furrows gleaning intruders, a seductive slimy pulsing abdomen whose exhale pushes violent geysers through pore-like blowholes in its membrane to drown invasive species in large swimming pools, a cavernous fleshy landscape of twin sister mounds adorned by large flapping bouffants that angrily siren against outsiders.
i'm hopeful that this imagery might lead to something interesting in the studio...lots of material decisions to make
The Expectation of the Observed, originally a project for Stone Quarry Art Park and completed at Yaddo, continues to travel the film festival circuit with recent screenings at the Slamdance, Ann Arbor, Atlanta, Boston Underground, Defy and Sweaty Eyeballs. I've also included some other photos from events throughout the year.
Cheech and i also spent some time in Portugal, starting in Porto and making our way through Coimbra, Óbidos, Fatima, Sintra, and Lisbon...well eating and limping through hilly cobblestone streets snacking on pasteis de nata and doing some puppet research...photos below from the Museu da Marioneta.
so much to learn about...
until soon,
-s
press:
Mark Jenkins, In the Galleries: Intersecting Themes, Washington Post, December 8, 2023
Mark Jenkins, In the Galleries: Concept of Time, Washington Post, October 27, 2023
Artworks Season 9: Episode 9011, The Art of Animation, Maryland Public Television, PBS, July 28, 2023
Olivia Niuman, Art Reviews - Re/envisioning, East City Art, August 1, 2023
Kriston Capps, ...Art and Identity Politics, Washington Post, August 1, 2023
Katherine Mahoney, Reflect on Your Story Re/envisioning, District Fray, July 6, 2023
Murat Cem Mengüç, 10 Art Shows to See in Washington DC This Summer, Hyperallergic, July 13, 2023
other events & things:
Artists Working Across Disciplines: Amina Ross & Stephanie J. Williams, Hamiltonian Artists, WDC, facilitated by Anisa Olufemi
Visiting Artist Lecture, The Kreeger Museum, WDC
In Person: March 26 - 31, 2024
Virtual: March 26 - April 7, 2024
In Person: March 20 - 24, 2024
screening: Saturday, March 24, 2024 @2:15pm, Brattle Theater, Sometimes Always - Animated Shorts Program
In Person: January 19 - 28, 2024
screening: Sunday, January 21, 2024 @2:15pm & January 24, 2024 @6pm, The Yarrow paired with The Complex Forms, feature by Fabio D'Orta
Virtual: January 19 - 28, 2024
Traveling throughout 2024 season
screening: mutiple
In Person: October 5-8, 2023
In Person screening/exhibition: August 18-19, 2023, Studio 615
An Adventure in Being MOCA ARLINGTON
group show CURATED BY Blair Murphy
ON VIEW September 9 - February 11, 2024
OPENING Thursday, July 6, 2023, 6-8pm
ARTISTS TALK Tuesday, July 18, 2023, 6:30pm (virtual)
LOCATION
MOCA Arlington
3550 Wilson Blvd
Arlington, VA 22201
Smith & Meyer Galleries, Main Level
Featured Artists: Vincent Cy Chen, Nicki Cherry, Jeremy Olson, and Stephanie J. Williams
An Adventure of Being explores blurred boundaries, physical breakdown, and states of in-between-ness. The painting, sculpture, and installations included in the exhibition incorporate materials and forms that bring to mind living beings. Sometimes fully formed, sometimes represented by parts or substances, these human forms, non-human animals, plants, and otherworldly creatures are unsettling and humorous, alien and familiar. Reflecting visual influences from surrealism, science fiction, technology, and popular culture, An Adventure of Being explores the experience of having a body through forms that exceed, break down, transcend, or blur the boundaries of the corporeal form.
The title of the exhibition, An Adventure of Being, is borrowed from Jean-Paul Sarte’s Being and Nothingness and comes from a roughly 6,000 word rumination on slime that appears towards the end of the book. Sartre’s analysis focuses on the in-between-ness of the slimy or viscous, its refusal to be either this or that, which is central to both its threat and its appeal.
An Adventure of Being is organized by Blair Murphy, MoCA Arlington’s curator of exhibitions.
residency program, Washington DC
The Nicholson Project is a paid artist residency program and neighborhood garden in Ward 7’s Fairlawn neighborhood. Our mission is to support, provide opportunities, engage, and amplify artists and creatives from our community and the local artist community—particularly artists of color and those from Ward 7 and 8—while engaging our neighbors through community-based programming. Our vision is to serve as a cultural hub and community anchor celebrating Ward 7’s authentic identity, while infusing new vibrancy into Southeast DC. We hope to inspire others to use similar non-traditional arts and community-centered projects as a pathway toward stronger, more vibrant communities.
RESIDENCY DATES July 5 - September 12, 2023
LOCATION
2310 Nicholson St SE, Washington, DC 20020
Sweaty Eyeballs, Outside the Frame Current Space
group show CURATED BY Phil Davis
ON VIEW September 8 - October 13, 2023
ARTISTS TALK Saturday, October 7, 2023
LOCATION
Current Space
421 N Howard
Baltimore, MD 21201
Come for the free films stay for the great cocktails at the bar. And of course, check out "Sweaty Eyeballs: Outside the Frame"in the gallery if you haven't already! It's a group exhibition of expanded animation and behind-the-scenes process by animators from Baltimore and beyond. Curated by Phil Davis, director and founder of the Sweaty Eyeballs Animation Festival.
Artists include:
Isaac King, Eric Dyer, Stephanie Williams, Corrie Francis Parks, Lynn Tomlinson, Kat Navarro, Adam Davies, Albert Birney, Zoe Friedman, Joanna Priestley, Miranda Javid, Alexi Scheiber, Erinn Hagerty & Adam Savje
