Blog Assignment #1

http://artyoucangetinto.blogspot.com/2008/12/iaos-review-pittsburgh-post-gazette.html

One of the Mattress Factory posts from late last year highlighted the work of David Ellis as part of their “Inner and Outer Space” exhibition. In his work, Ellis set up an overhead digital camera while he painted vivid images on large canvases. He painted in such a way that his subject matter looked as though it was moving across the canvas and then once one image was completed, he would start to paint over it, creating a new layer, a new image over top of the previous one. While the canvases themselves could have hung on the walls of any other museum, his real medium was the flipbook like series of images compiled into a movie. He takes into consideration the way in which he must paint so that the images look as though they are moving.

Another one of the works in this series includes one entitled “FLY” in which Ellis himself is recorded in slow-motion while the camera is sideways and he is falling into a large puddle of pink-orange paint. As he splashes into the paint on the ground, a mix of bright yellow and orange paints follows him, being thrown behind his falling body. The most interesting thing about this piece is probably the way in which the paint interacts. His body splashing into the paint resembles the way in which anything splashes in water, but the slow-motion footage of the paint in mid air behind him, especially because of the yellow and orange colors, resembles the way in which fire moves and burns across the ground.