GALLERY GUIDE
Featured
Geneva Huffman, Sweer Dreams, 2021 (video still)
artists
Barry Doupé
Meredith Holch
Geneva Huffman
Ana Mouyis & Zachary Zezima
Eric Power
INTRODUCTION
Since its early origins in 20th-century film entertainment, animation has emerged as a powerful and versatile medium in visual art, capable of merging image, sound, and narrative into a dynamic visual art form. No longer limited to entertainment or commercial media, animation has received growing recognition by museums and galleries as vital contemporary practice.
Animation as Art features a diverse group of national and international animators, including Barry Doupé, Meredith Holch, Geneva Huffman, Ana Mouyis and Zachary Zezima, and Eric Power. The five animated shorts created by these artists explore themes of identity, memory, and culture while conveying expressive states ranging from humor and fear to loss and compassion.
Unbound by the commercial constraints of mainstream studios, independent animators employ traditional fine art, digital, or hybrid techniques to create works that are innovative and socially relevant. Artists such as Meredith Holch, Geneva Huffman, and Eric Power utilize stop-motion animation and its hand-crafted, tactile aesthetic to communicate memory and emotional depth.
Constructed with layered tissue paper and glass plates, Vermont-based artist Meredith Holch’s Brother Bird uses stop motion to animate three real-life stories of remembered loved ones who return from the afterlife in the form of birds or insects. In Sweet Dreams, emerging artist Geneva Huffman animates sculpted figures to humorously explore a child’s emotional states of fear and vulnerability at bedtime.
In Video Games, Austin-based artist Eric Power uses cut-paper animation—a synthesis of collage and stop motion—to represent nostalgia for our youth when life seemed simpler. Collaborating with the local indie band Mixtape for the
Meredith Holch, Brother Bird, 2025 (video still)
Milkyway, Power chronicles the evolution of video games, such as Pac-Man and Asteroids, through animated vintage television sets and simulations of these classic games.
Musicians often work with animators to enhance their songs through visual narrative and to reach a wider audience. By integrating animation with their music, performers can create unique, immersive experiences that translate the emotional intensity and themes of a song.
Along with Eric Power, creative partners Zachary Zezima and Ana Mouyis may work collaboratively with musicians to animate their songs. For the French band General Elektrik’s song, Au Tir à la Carabine, Zezima and Mouyis created an imaginative, digital animation that follows a sharpshooting young girl who uses her words in the same way as her rifle—but eventually finds compassion for others.
Eric Power, Video Games, 2020 (video still)
Ana Mouyis and Zachary Zezima, Au Tir à La Carabine, 2018 (video still)
Canadian artist Barry Doupé uses simple computer software to create hand-drawn sequences that continuously reconfigure images and characters for his animated short, Red House. Inspired by the subconscious, Doupé develops his imagery through writing exercises, automatic drawing, and fragmented narratives. While visually playful, Red House employs metamorphosis to examine more serious themes of housing stability.
Through a mixture of traditional and digital approaches, the artists featured in Animation as Art blur the boundaries between fine art and visual culture as they exemplify animation’s expanding significance in contemporary art.
Heather Ferrell, Curator and Director of Exhibitions
No longer limited to entertainment or commercial media, animation has received growing recognition by museums and galleries as vital contemporary practice.
Barry Doupé, Red House, 2022 (video still)
CHECK LIST
Barry Doupé, Director and Animator
Red House, 2022
digital animation (3:00)
Sound Design: James Whittman
Meredith Holch, Director and Animator
Brother Bird, 2025
frame-by-frame animation (9:15)
Geneva Huffman, Director and Animator
Sweet Dreams, 2021
stop motion animation (2:20)
Eric Power, Director and Animator
Video Games, 2020
stop-motion animation (3:01)
Music: Mixtape for the Milkyway (Piano, synths, production by John Mark Nelson // Lyrics and vocals by Jeremy Messersmith)
Zachary Zezima, Director and Animator
Ana Mouyis, Animator
Au Tir à La Carabine, 2018
digital animation (2:58)
Music: General Elektriks
All works are Courtesy of the Artist and NFS
Barry Doupé is a Canadian artist primarily working with computer animation, digital painting, and sculpture. He holds a BA of Media Arts from Emily Carr University, Vancouver. Doupé’s films have been screened throughout Canada and internationally, including the Vancouver Art Gallery, Canada; Chicago Underground Film Festival, IL; International Film Festival, Rotterdam; e-flux screening room, NY; Swallow Gallery, Lithuania; DOK, Leipzig; Hors Pistes, The Centre Pompidou, Paris; and Deluge Contemporary, Victoria. In 2024 he was selected for the National Gallery of Canada’s prestigious Sobey Art Award long list. Doupé lives and works in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Meredith Holch was an artist, filmmaker, performer, and educator specializing in mixed-media, stop motion animation. Holch earned an MFA in Film/Video from Bard College, NY, and taught Video Production at The New School, NY, and Film Animation at Burlington College and Sterling College, VT. She served as Executive Director, Hardwick Community Public Access; touring puppeteer for Bread & Puppet Theatre; and worked as a video producer, animator, and crankybox storyteller. Holch’s films have been screened at PBS; The Museum of Modern Art, NY; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; and at numerous film festivals, universities, and community spaces. She received grants from the Vermont Arts Council, Vermont Community Foundation, and LEF Foundation’s Moving Image Fund, and was an artistin-residence at MacDowell, NH; Millay Arts, NY; and Jentel Artist Residency, WY. For her film Brother Bird (2025), Holch received Best Film by a Vermont Animator, Vermont Animation Festival, and Best Animated Film, Made Here Film Festival. A resident of Hardwick, Vermont, Meredith Holch passed away unexpectedly in May 2025.
Ana Mouyis is an animator, filmmaker, and educator. Mouyis earned a BFA from The New School’s Parsons School of Design, NY, and an MFA from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn. Mouyis’ films have screened at numerous international festivals including Encounters Short Film and Animation Festival; Animation Block Party, NY; and KLIK Amsterdam Animation Festival. Select awards include the Art Directors Club Bronze Cube Award for Pussy! (2015); Best Animation, National Competition at Animafest Cyprus for Dahlia (2017); and Best Experimental Short, The Americas Film Festival, for Cambia Tutto (2019). She was a 2021
artist-in-residence at Animafest Cyprus where she presented her animated documentary and art installation, To Your Hands. Since 2009, she has worked commercially contributing illustration and animation to The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The School of Life, The Atlantic, and STARZ. In addition to client work, she directs and animates independent short films. Originally from Cyprus, Mouyis is based in Boston, MA, where she works as an Assistant Professor of Animation, Massachusetts College of Art and Design.
Eric Power is a self-taught animator, writer, and director who has been crafting exciting and unique animations spanning a variety of genres over the past two decades. Power explored a variety of animation techniques before developing his signature style working with cut paper, which he brings to life through stop motion animation. Since his first animation experience working on Richard Linklater’s acclaimed animated film, Waking Life (2001), Power has directed over 70 animated music videos, several short films, and four feature length animated films including Path of Blood (2013), When You Get to the Forest (2023), and his animated memoir, Papercuts: My Life as an Indie Animator (2024). Power lives and works in Austin, Texas.
Zachary Zezima is an animation director who received his BFA from The New School’s Parsons School of Design, NY, and MFA from California Institute of the Arts, Valencia. His film shorts have screened at international festivals including Sundance, Pictoplasma, Ars Electronica, and Animafest Zagreb. Select nominations and awards for his films include: Honorable Mention, Adobe Design Achievement Awards for Cruising (2014); Best Experimental Film, Animation Block Party, Brooklyn; Special Jury Award, Anilogue International Animation Festival, Budapest, and Best International Short Animated Film, Go Short International Short Film Festival, Netherlands, for Friend of a Friend (2020). In 2021, Zezima directed animation for an episode of PRIDE, a six-part docuseries on FX detailing LGBTQ+ civil rights. His most recent film, The Inevitable Return (2025), documents the history of the US Military’s influence on surfing and surf culture. Zezima is based in Los Angeles where he is an Associate Professor of Animation in the Department of Art, California State University.
Featured artists
Barry Doupé
Meredith Holch
Geneva Huffman
Ana Mouyis & Zachary Zezima
Eric Power
BCA summer exhibitions are supported in part by the Maslow Family Foundation and Todd Lockwood. Hospitality sponsor: Lake Champlain Chocolates. Burlington City Arts is supported in part by the Vermont Arts Council & the National Endowment for the Arts.