Early Shorts1990

YOU BE MOTHER (1990) 16mm col, sound, 7 min- You Be Mother uses stop-frame animation to disrupt the traditional orders of animate and inanimate, the fluid and the solid. An hallucinatory space is set up when a frozen image of the artist's face is projected onto weighty pieces of crockery atop a table. Ears, eyes, nose and mouth, all become spatially dislocated as a determined hand begins to reposition, decant and mix. Events unfold to the amplified sounds of grinding, pouring and stirring. MILK AND GLOSS (1993) 16mm col, sound, 10 min- An interior landscape is scrutinized, and an apparent rational calm is revealed as suffocating. Milk and Glass is an evocation journey from surface to interior- a black-coated mirror, the hollow of a bowl, a cavernous throat a brush demarcates a line of lip on a flat surface, a mouth doubles up with the bowl and is virtually spoon-fed till it chokes. BACKCOMB (1995) 16mm col, sound, 6 min- In Backcomb the demonic is unleashed on domestic space. It takes the form of two of femininity's mildest tokens, hair and embroidery, that serve here in the creation of sexualised surrealist experience. Within the claustrophobic space of a table-lay, a forceful and erectile mass of hair comes alive and slithers across its surface. The hair probes into vessels and punches through the cloth finally order overturns and all smashes to the ground. MIRRORED MEASURE (1996) 16mm, b&w, sound, 10 min- Mirrored Measure features two women separated by a generation. The older woman ceremoniously lays a table - she repeatedly spreads a cloth and smooths it out. The table is set and glasses and jug filled with water. A balanced and controlled ritual follows in which the jug is passed round and water is repeatedly sipped. Water becomes the lens through which we see and the medium through which the protagonists connect. The sense of connectivity is abruptly severed when the first glass tumbles.