There were things I could draw pictures of,
and there were things that couldn’t be drawn;
more and more I was attracted to the second category.
There were things I wanted to describe, but I didn’t know how.
There were things that I wanted to show, but there was no way to show them.
                - quote from The Haunted Camera, (part of the Ima Plume Trilogy), by Nancy Andrews

Venture into the unknown with two animations by award-winning artist, Nancy Andrews, ON A PHANTOM LIMB (2009) and BEHIND THE EYES ARE THE EARS (2010).  Andrews' work fuses collaged, drawn and found imagery with solemn mythical creatures and autobiographical materials to unfold curious, otherworldly tales that reflect on aspects of the foreign and the familiar. Emotionally charged, these supernatural films maneuver from quizzical and wistful, to surreal and nostalgic. Among many honors, Andrews is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (2008), and her films are in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in NYC. She will be present via Skype for a Q&A following the screening. Click here to read awonderfully profound interview in the L.A. Record with Nancy Andrews, about "her early days making earrings out of photos of slabs of beef, what she learned from floating between life and death, and why she wants to be friends with a crow". This event is funded in part by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts.

ON A PHANTOM LIMB (2009, 35 minutes, video)
This film examines the journey of a human-made hybrid, a surgical creation – part woman, part bird – passing through death, purgatory, and returning to life. The boundaries of reality, fantasy, documentary, and fiction are blurred in this reprise of classic themes, dilemmas, and consequences of reanimation. “The monster did not choose this for her self, to be an amalgam for alchemy.” Read a dazzling review by Jim Supanick HERE.

BEHIND THE EYES ARE THE EARS (2010, 25 minutes, video)
This mix of 16mm, animation, found footage, and live-action footage follows the research of Dr. Sheri Myes and her revolutionary attempts to expand our perceptions and consciousness. The filmmaker began the project by writing a song cycle, and then imagery was developed through a series of drawings. The film is influenced by classic‘mad scientist’ horror films like DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE, and by research into the physiology of insects.

ABOUT NANCY ANDREWS:
Nancy lives in Seal Harbor, Maine, where she makes films and performance pieces. She studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and received a Master of Fine Arts in 1995, and her undergraduate studies were at the Maryland Institute, College of Art, BFA, 1983. Her work has been presented by the Museum of Modern Art (including two solo shows), Pacific Film Archive, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Jerusalem Film Festival, and Chicago Filmmakers, among others.

Her films are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, and the Flaxman Film Collection of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.  She has also served as a juror at the Ann Arbor Film Festival (2003). Among other honors, such as serving as a juror for the Ann Arbor Film Festival (2003), she is the recipient of many grants and fellowships, such as The Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art (supported by the Jerome Foundation and New York State Council on the Arts) and the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship (2008).  Nancy currently teaches performance art, video making and film history at the College of the Atlantic.

Her film and performance work explores questions like: What is our place in the universe? What do we really know? How do we try to grasp the past, or the future? How can humans interface with the natural world at this juncture in history? She works in a hybrid form combining storytelling, documentary, puppetry, vaudeville, and academia, perhaps as a metaphor for the complexities of these questions. Her characters and stories are synthesized from various sources, including historic diaries and accounts, biographies, womens history, journal articles, and then combined with autobiographical material.

For more information, visit Nancy Andrews' website HERE

This event is funded in part by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts.