Memento Mori
Memento Mori, 2:12 minutes, 16mm film with sound, May 2013.
Film still. Three Matisse paintings gaze out beyond the viewer.
Film still. Photos of The Boston Bombing can be seen in the middle of the still.
Drawing inspiration from the Memento Mori and Vanitas paintings of the seventeenth century, this film collages color and light to form a kind of stained glass image to view a vase of dying flowers through. Images from the Boston Marathon Bombing and paintings from Matisse are fused into the flowers to reference present pain and appreciate past masters.
The 16mm film was shot with the Bolex camera using a mat box, hand crank, various hand cut grid matts and telephoto lenses. The film was exposed up to ten times at some points. The sound is the drive of a sewing machine that sews to the point of jamming and screeching for relief.
