Sequential
Still Lifes

1:1 Aspect Ratio

Sequences 6-10, Looped (2017)
Graphite Pencil
24 Drawings, Each at 6 x 6 in.

Sequence 6.

These drawings are developed out of the vanitas still life tradition, by way of the Spanish bodegón. The Master’s of 17th century still life painting, such as Juan van der Hamen y León, Francisco de Zubarán, and Juan Sánchez Cotán, pioneered a new outlook on the genre. Their paintings depicted pantry items from the bodega, hence the term bodegón, through a uniquely austere perspective. Gone was the sensual opulence of Northern European still lifes. By contrast, these Spanish tableaus depicted everyday objects before a dark and exacting backdrop. Food, plants, and pots were examined thoroughly, held up to scrutiny, weighed and measured. The affect is calculated and haunting.

Here, the bodegón tradition is recast through a short-form documentary approach. The Spanish still life ethos is explored anew through the use of stop motion animation—stillness prolonged. These compositions employ the photographic formatting of Eadweard Muybridge’s Animal locomotion series in order to examine the still life across time. Each scene records the passage of night, illuminated by expiring candle light.

Francisco de Zurbarán
Still life with Vessels (1650)
Oil on Canvas
18 x 33 in.

Eadweard Muybridge
Animal Locomotion, Plate 504 (1887)
Collotype
8 x 14 in.

Both the bodegón and the Muybridge photographs are concerned with perception, relying upon the same visual vernacular to communicate their findings. In each the subject is centered, staged, and spotlighted, displayed against an austere backdrop. They are at once subjective and objective in their reporting, albeit partisan: painting is largely viewed as a subjective practice, whereas photography is conflated with objective truth.

Both methods employ a black backdrop. This framing method links the two disparate traditions, yet it is employed for different purposes. In both, the backdrop frames the subject/object in high contrast. The bodegón backdrop is a void, often suggesting a depth of field. Meanwhile, Muybridge’s documentary photographs are gridded—the foreground measured against the flat calculated armature set behind it. This black is dramatic, moody, emotional. This black is likewise functional, sterile, empirical. The backdrop is both theater and laboratory.

Sequential Still Lifes plays upon these two traditions. Ceramic props are drawn against a gridded backdrop. The vessels’ shapes are delineated by the play and measured motion of light across their forms, and by the shadows that they cast around them.