Curator / Fionn Meade

Nocturnes

Cat Clifford
Laleh Khorramian
Lucy Raven
Mary Simpson

September 4 – October 2, 2005
Reception / First Thursday, September 1, 6–9:30pm

Nocturnes features four artists who explore animation within their wider studio practice–Cat Clifford, Laleh Khorramian, Lucy Raven, and Mary Simpson. Two from Seattle and two from New York, each artist in Nocturnes will show new films that transport the viewer into 'other worlds' entirely of the artists' making. They will also be showing related works and source material, including prints, drawings, and sculptural elements.

Once considered primarily the domain of William Kentridge, many more artists have recently begun to incorporate animation into their work as the technology becomes more affordable. Consequently, a host of young artists are beginning to establish themselves on the strength of their animated works.

Drawn in to a close rapport with sequencing, self-reference, and the use of motif, the wonder of filmmaking—ever in the process of becoming—is made direct and tangible in the work of each artist. A newly rediscovered freedom to bring entire worlds to life is well within reach as each engages aspects of landscape to create unique meta-universes.

The basic tools of animation are now accessible and affordable enough that artists can experiment with the form. The medium's inherently allegorical nature, whether withdrawn into formal concerns or overtly referential, seems to attract artists with an auteur's sensibility, but its relative obscurity in the art world makes it something of a clean slate for young artists. Nocturnes features four artists whose work steps away from conventional formats to inhabit new territory with its own rules.

Cat Clifford is a Seattle artist who makes videos, drawings, prints, and animation works. Concerned with showing the viewer the subtle daily and seasonal changes to landscape and the related patterns, thoughts, and actions that inhabit landscape, Clifford sets her images in motion to convey the passage of time outside. Many of the source drawings are of structures that could or could not facilitate staying outdoors for extended periods of time. Clifford received her MFA from Southern Methodist University and was a finalist for last year's Betty Bowen award. She will have a solo show at Gallery4Culture this fall.

Laleh Khorramian is a New York-based artist whose work explores spectacle and the theatrical space and finite networks that constitute crowds and individuals. Exploring themes through paintings, performances, drawings, printmaking, and animations, Khorramian creates macro and micro views of landscapes and crowds, constructing arenas that obscure proportions, and carve fictions from these incidental spaces. She received her MFA from Columbia University. Her work was recently included in P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center's 2005 Greater New York exhibit and she has an upcoming solo show at Salon 94 in New York.

Lucy Raven is an artist living in Brooklyn. Her recent stop motion animations, including When the Ceiling has Become Visible explore the landscape and ethos of the dustbowl era and take inspiration from Walker Evans among other sources. She is a painter, filmmaker and sound artist and the co-founder and editor of The Relay Project, an audio magazine based in Brooklyn. Raven has recently shown at Lehman Maupin and Jack the Pelican Presents in New York, and has upcoming group shows at the Reinberger Gallery, Cleveland Art Institute. She will be a resident artist this fall at the Center for Land Use and Interpretation.

Mary Simpson is a visual artist living in Seattle. Her recent projects include Hello Central, Give Me Heaven, Hello Central, Give Me No Man's Land, a multimedia installation at the Tacoma Tollbooth Gallery, and Release & Capture: Paperworks at the Kirkland Arts Center. Her primary medium is printmaking and drawing, which provide the source work for her animations. Her work explores the fragmentation of the individual away from home, with elements of American history and myth as source material. She recently received a 2005 King County Special Projects grant and will have a solo show at Gallery 4Culture in early 2006.