1. How do you define art?

I am not especially interested in the idea of “defining” art, as such. For me the edges of disciplines, forms and practices––where they slip into other languages or meanings, for example––are often the most exciting! 

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2. Do you prefer animated art to still artwork, such as painting?

As a viewer, I enjoy all different kinds of encounters that make me feel and think about space, material, duration, illusion and magic in new ways. I don’t prefer one form over another, but rather I tend to enjoy their differences. As an artist, I like to play with different forms and ways of making––often I show animations alongside painting objects than extend the logic of the storyworld into the space of the gallery.

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3. Do you think you can make oil painting move, create animations just using brush and oil paint?

I think the play of gestures and movement in painting is one of it’s most exciting aspects. A tutor of mine, the painter Lisa Milroy, would often talk about the tension and play between “stillness and movement” within a painting. This is something I reflect on a lot as a viewer and maker.

 

4. Did you encounter any challenges or difficulties when creating animation, and what is that?

I have encountered lots of technical difficulties––literally, how to achieve what I would like to achieve within AfterEffects (a programme I have taught myself to use). But these difficulties are interesting for me because they set a limit to the worlds I am creating in my animations. These challenges have come to define the aesthetic of my animations. Time is always a challenge––animation is by its nature very demanding of time in the making process––but again, this has created a new way of relating to my work. I am now much slower and more invested in each piece––I stay with the ideas for longer than I used to when I made painting objects and performances.

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5. How important do you think is for things, art, visual display to be animated?

I think it is very important for art to animate ideas, feelings and sensations for a viewer. But I think that this kind of “animation” can be conjured by an installation of objects in a space, or with paint on a canvas, as well as with moving image work.

 

6. Do you think animation presents ideas better than classic art, like oil painting, why?

I think animation presents ideas differently, and this difference is very exciting to explore. Animation has the capacity to conjure certain ideas, feelings and sensations for a viewer––the transformation of dead matter into an apparently live image; the relation between sound and image etc.––but it also has its limits. The screen, the

technology, the imposed duration etc. Making and viewing animation and painting invites us to consider how different experiences are conjured and captured within an artwork, which is why the relation between them is so dynamic and interesting.

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7. Do you think animated artwork catches more attention, why?

Perhaps as viewers we are more conditioned in the experience of moving image (through YouTube, films, TV and popular animation etc.) and so we find it easier to spend time with moving image work than with painting? But, this is not always the case. I think this question has a lot to do with how an exhibition is presented––what are the choices that have been made in terms of display? How does a viewer encounter a painting or animation in the gallery or elsewhere?