BRENTON NEWCOMB
Special to The Leader
The Marion Art Gallery is starting this season with an exhibition from Martha Colburn — an internationally renowned, award-winning artist.
She is known for her experimental stop-motion animated films.
The exhibition, “Imagined Histories,” features five stop-motion animated films and will be open to the public from Sept. 3 to Nov. 22 with an opening reception on October 18.
The exhibition reception is 6 p.m to 9 p.m, and is also free and open to the public.
Martha Colburn, born in Gettysburg PA, currently lives and works out of Amsterdam and Los Angeles.
Colburn has produced a total 70 films since beginning in 1995.
She is a self-learned filmmaker who first began by manipulating existing footage.
Colburn went on to produce her own animated films with a Super 8mm camera.
Many of her initial films in the collage style serve as music videos for groups that she and her friends played in.
In a recent interview with Dazed.com, she says many of her films are a “comment on popular culture, consumerism, politics and sexuality.”
Many of Colburn’s films feature homemade puppets, combined with vintage puzzles and old film footage in a collaged together avant-garde fashion.
These puppets are, as artist Leonor Faber-Jonker puts it, “Protagonists of Captivating Tales” that take the form of “historical figures, wriggly insects, fantastical creatures, spirits and animals.”
The puppets are animated with a technique she has coined “a two-and-a-half D world” because although it is two-dimensional it appears to be three-dimensional.
Colburn’s plan for the future are similar to her collage art.
If you have any questions, contact Marion Art Gallery director Barbara Racker at barbara.racker@fredonia.edu