Watch the animation ‘Draft of a Voice-Over for Split-Screen Video Loop’; a collaboration between the artist Amy Sillman and poet Lisa Robertson and think about your own relationship to the processes of making this work.

Jutta Koether, talking about her work ‘Seasons and Sacraments’ shown at Dundee Contemporary Art in 2013, speaks about her approach of layering images one on top of the other (rather than in sequence, one after the other) as “a performance that only painting can do”.

‘Draft of a Voice-Over for Split-Screen Video Loop’ (2012), is a six-minute digital animation comprising 2,000 drawings, which Sillman made on an iPad, accompanied by a voice-over of the artist reading a 2009 poem by Lisa Robertson.  The work is a mix of abstract and representational imagery that connects language and sexuality to illustrates the complexities of expressing (or denying) gender and femininity when language itself is a gendered construct.  (Staff, 2012) (Kopel, 2017)

I initially found the piece a little hard to interpret as my senses competed between the split screens and narrated overlay of the poem, yielded further by using visual techniques and varying viewpoints. I was left wondering if my own confusion was mirroring that of the artists intent to convey the complexity of femininity and language. As a process it presents an interesting dialogue between visual imagery and oral dialect to develop a narrative.

In contrast, Jutta Koether’s “Seasons and Sacrament’, builds a narrative by layering images one on top of the other in one painting. Koether explains that her linear drawings allow a viewer to recognise each so that they are engaged in the narrative; a kind of performance that “only a painting can do”.

Both Amy Sillman and Jutta Koether explore the possibilities of building a narrative on one surface of a painting. My own approach to the exercise ‘constructing narratives’ was very linear. This research challenged my approach to reconsider other potential avenues that could be explored.

References

Kopel, D., 2017. Pace Of Change: Amy Sillman At The Drawing Center. [online] ARTnews.com. Available at: <https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/features/pace-of-change-amy-sillman-at-the-drawing-center-60039/&gt; [Accessed 29 April 2020].

Robertson, L. and Sillman, A., 2012. Draft Of A Voice-Over For Split-Screen Video Loop, 2012. [online] Vimeo. Available at: <https://vimeo.com/84403800&gt; [Accessed 28 April 2020].

Seasons and Sacraments. 2013. Directed by J. Koether. Dundee Contemporary Arts: YouTube.

Sillman, A. and Bradley, P., 2014. Amy Sillman: The Labour Of Painting – The White Review. [online] The White Review. Available at: <https://www.thewhitereview.org/feature/amy-sillman/&gt; [Accessed 28 April 2020].

Staff, H., 2012. Lisa Robertson’s Voiceover For Amy Sillman In… | Poetry Foundation. [online] Poetry Foundation. Available at: <https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2012/07/lisa-robertsons-voiceover-for-amy-sillman-in-paris&gt; [Accessed 29 April 2020].