Motion Made Visible

The material in this essay originated as a counterpoint to the artwork and essays of Jean Detheux. If you're not familiar with Jean's work, see my recently posted interview with him.

While in the last 15 years I have focused my attention on animation, previously I worked in more traditional art media, drawing and painting on paper and canvas. Interestingly, much of my still work (for example the series of large charcoal drawings Snow Removal and Ice Control) was built in sequence somewhat like the key frames of a film.


Snow Removal and Ice Control, charcoal on paper, 48 X 36 inches, 1987

I turned to animation when I found myself intrigued by that magical moment between the frames, the moment of motion. To paraphrase Norman McLaren: What happens between the frames is more important than what happens on each frame. But how do we draw for that moment between the frames?

Searching through my films for stills to represent the work in festival catalogues, I'm always astonished to find how little explanatory detail is required to give the images meaning. In fact, the strongest animated sequences often consist of almost unrecognizable images. Strung together sequentially they reveal in motion a complexity of information - for example gesture, attitude, or emotion - that would be impossible to duplicate with consciously motivated, precisely drawn forms. It's fascinating to see how far from a figurative image I can get and still have the animated frames communicate something fresh, something that wasn't apparent while looking at the stills, something in which the viewer can find a wealth of resonance and meaning.

(Sequential frames from Slide, 2005 - the bird reverses direction)
(View other short clips of similarly animated frames - Crow)

In his article Animation: Prozac or Kyosaku* the artist and critic Jean Detheux cites the case for ambiguity and doubt in visual imagery. He believes that an image without ambiguity does not invite the viewer to bring their imagination and interpretation to bear on it. To Detheux the result is visual boredom. To take it a step further : animated motion, rendered in a simple way, draws us away from “fresh seeing” (I first encountered this term in Emily Carr's book Fresh Seeing published in 1972).

At times I've struggled with giving up the reins of control over the imagery because I was concerned that the viewer would not be able to follow the narrative line. I believed that the story had to be tightly structured and that if it didn’t communicate clearly, the film failed. So much so that sometimes my imagery became secondary to the tale, even though my strongest images were those that were less literal.

Slide for example, completed in 2005, has sequences in which the imagery is almost abstract while still remaining within a narrative context.

(Near abstract stills from Slide, 2005)
(View a short clip of these frames - Frenzy)

Profile, completed in 2008, has improvised animated riffs that generate strong emotional performances.

(Stills from Profile, 2008)
(View a similar short clip from Profile)

My ongoing struggle with these two approaches is almost like having opposite factions - story vs inventive imagery - each trying to dominate.

I believe the tension between narrative and imagery is central to the art of animation and in my current film I continue to pursue this struggle, this time letting the imagery dominate. Detheux, in his article Notes from the Underground Part Six — From Mary Ellen Bute to Pierre Hébert, Animation in a Different Key! ** writes:

(Katz is) trying to find another way into storytelling in her animation, a way that will be more in tune with her experience as a painter. She is attempting to do something that I think is very complicated. In as much as she refuses to follow established paths, she's basically reinventing the wheel her way…

He points out that I have a knack for being able to make us see "things" without actually drawing them literally. I want to explore that by bringing my painter's experience to fully bear on the imagery of my upcoming films. It will be more about the search for form than about the final form itself, more about the voyage than the destination. I want the audience to participate in the exploration, and to take delight as they uncover meaning in the artwork and in the overall film.

From a story perspective my new work will be built on sequences of impressions which revolve loosely around narrative skeletons. The story will find its meaning in the implied connections between the episodes.