EFA STUDIO PROGRAM: ALUMNI
Susan Jennings
I make video art installations in collaboration with Slink Moss. Together we create an environment with projected video art, hanging sculptures, collages and paintings.
I am committed to making video art that is viewed as would be a painting or drawing. There is no narrative, nor any particular timeline. The viewers engage with the video imagery when they discover it in the gallery and spend as much time with it as their interest allows. The imagery is related more to mark making than story telling. The marks are made by light, color and movement, which I find in nature. These works are involved more with the tradition of drawing than film. Drawing, that is, which takes place in time and, in collaboration with natural happenings, is made from the essential elements of video; light, darkness, movement, color. All the works begin with footage that I take of naturally occurring events that I either find or stage. In the editing process, I work with the footage, sometimes manipulating the color and/or changing the speed.
I project the videos into gallery spaces and interrupt the projections with sculptures made of reflective and refractive materials that dangle and move, throwing the light and shadows around the space.
Slink Moss makes paintings and minimalist sound art for these installations. He and I also perform together as Black Lake, a music and art duo that incorporates video art, original music and sound art, spoken word, movement and shadows for its performances. Black Lake either performs within the video art installations at galleries or we set up an installation for the duration of the performance.
