Stacey Steers: Night Hunter

STACEY STEERS Night Hunter

M a y 2 4 - July 1 3 2 0 1 9

Night Hunter 2011 / 16 minutes / 35mm to Pro Res HD Incorporating images of the actor Lillian Gish taken from silent-era live-action cinema, Night Hunter summons a mysterious dreamscape drawn from allegory, myth, and archetype to create an evocation of the uncanny and an exploration of the creative process. The music and sound design are by composer Larry Polansky.

"Night Hunter is amazing, brilliant. A true horror movie of absolute essence, evoking the darkest of fairy tales and dream words from the deepest and most disquieting recesses of the mind body experience. Very disturbing in its haunting beauty and fluid, evocative (nothing so static as 'symbolic' would imply) imagery, tensions, paradoxes - all the way through to the final 'escape' (into the dark forest); Lillian Gish is archetypically mesmerizing.

In fact it all seems quite perfect - the rich and complex collages, the developing rhythms, the sound. A great work. Beyond words - of course." (Marilyn Brakhage) Night Hunter House is a remarkably detailed one-twelfth scale house with ten rooms furnished to evoke key moments in the animation, visible only through windows. Each room also contains an embedded screen displaying sequential scenes from the film to create a visceral, theatrical experience. Night Hunter Cottage is a smaller one-room version of the much larger house.

I’m inspired by the Surrealist techniques of collage and montage, so my films bring incongruous or unexpected objects into a pre-existing film frame or a newly assembled collage environment to suggest new narratives. The Surrealists talk about this same idea and use it as a strategy. Like the Surrealists, my working process is intuitive and allows the unconscious and non-rational to play a role. I unite elements with no obvious shared context and try to create an atmosphere where their alignment feels somehow natural and poetically sound.

I think when I first started using these images of early silent film actors, it never really occurred to me, exactly how expressive they could be. I was attracted to them and to an emotional immediacy I felt coming from them, but the discoveries I made about what I can focus on and utilize when I’m working with them, have continued to surprise me. I’m drawn to moments of ambiguity and intimacy and to actors who liked to add psychological complexity to their performances. My collage technique makes it possible for me to linger over very fleeting expressions and extend them in a way that emphasizes a state of interiority I am interested in exploring. I’m curious about the nature of longing -- how it provokes and mediates experience. At the same time, I try to undercut cultural biases in film representation and to return agency and independence to historic portrayals of women.

ARTIST STATEMENT

HOUSE 60 x 36 x 36 inches wood,Nixplay screens and mixed media

COTTAGE 19 x 13 x 11 inches wood,Nixplay screens and mixed media

SINGLE COLLAGE 22 x 18 x 1 inches in frame

SINGLE COLLAGE 22 x 18 x 1 inches in frame

SINGLE COLLAGE 22 x 18 x 1 inches in frame

SINGLE COLLAGE 22 x 18 x 1 inches in frame

SINGLE COLLAGE 22 x 18 x 1 inches in frame

SINGLE COLLAGE 22 x 18 x 1 inches in frame

SINGLE COLLAGE 22 x 18 x 1 inches in frame

SINGLE COLLAGE 22 x 18 x 1 inches in frame

SHADOW BOX 11 x 14 x 3 inches mixed media

SHADOW BOX 9 x 12 x 3 inches mixed media

SHADOW BOX 9 x 12 x 3 inches mixed media

SHADOW BOX 9 x 12 x 3 inches mixed media

DIPTYCH COLLAGE 22 x 18 x 1 inches in frame

DIPTYCH COLLAGE 22 x 18 x 1 inches in frame

DIPTYCH COLLAGE 22 x 18 x 1 inches in frame

DIPTYCH COLLAGE 22 x 18 x 1 inches in frame

About the Artist: Stacey Steers is known for her process-driven, labor-intensive films composed of thousands of handmade works on paper. Her recent work employs images appropriated from early cinematic sources, from which she constructs original, lyrical narratives.

Steers is a recipient of major grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, Creative Capital and the American Film Institute. A comprehensive retrospective of Steers' work was included in the 2015 Annecy International Festival of Animation (France) and she was awarded the Brakhage Vision Award in 2012. She is a fellow of the MacDowell Colony, The Corporation of Yaddo, Bogliasco Foundation, Sacatar Foundation, Ucross and Djerassi Foundation.

Screening History: Steers' animated short films have screened throughout the U.S. and abroad, and have received numerous awards. Her work has shown at Sundance Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Locarno International Film Festival, IFFR Rotterdam, New Directors New Films (New York), MoMa, the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.) among many other broad-ranging venues.

Installation History: Steers' installation work has been exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery, the Denver Art Museum, Hamburger Kunsthalle, the Hood Museum at Dartmouth College, Kohler Art Center, 21C Museum Hotels and many other venues. Her work is in the collections of the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Denver Art Museum, Hood Museum at Dartmouth College, Johnson Art Museum at Cornell University, and 21C Museum Hotels among others. In 2017, she completed solo exhibitions at Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco and Robischon Gallery in Denver.

www.staceysteers.com | stacey@staceysteers.com

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