Karen Yasinsky
Informed by classic French cinema, Karen Yasinsky has a somewhat formulaic, though typically successful, method of presentation. Often Yasinsky uses drawings and hand-drawn and stop-motion animations to re-interpret a single movie; in this year's Sondheim finalists' exhibition, she explores Robert Bresson's 1966 Au Hasard Balthazar. Including three animations--two hand-drawn and a 9-minute stop-motion animation with dolls--and a series of drawings all based on the movie, Yasinsky reinvents the characters and plot multiple times within her installation.
The first room of Yasinsky's exhibition space contains her drawings and two animations, each hand drawn at 12 frames per second. The drawings are broken into two groupings, the mood and style changing drastically from one set to the next. In the larger, more prominently displayed drawings, brightly colored inks burst from behind the centrally placed graphite and colored pencil figures, ultimately washing the figures out. In these images, Marie and Balthazar are displayed, absurdly and alternately, with a cowboy character and a cartoon reproduction of Mr. Magoo. Somewhat unimpressive in their raw, almost unfinished rendering and without reference to a greater narrative or climax (due to their similar compositions and backgrounds), the images seem to be more studies for an animation than finished works in their own right. Making up for this shortcoming, however, are three smaller drawings on the rear wall, which are more carefully stylized and maintain an allegorical attention to color: Balthazar is depicted with silver details, while Marie is illustrated in reds.
The two hand-drawn animations, "Marie" and "Enough to Drive You Mad," are sound tracked by local musicians Dan Breen and Tom Boram of Snacks. In the three and a half minute "Marie," the girl appears as a simple, though strikingly accurate, line drawing, looking off into the distance as her lips move. Yasinsky examines the ambiguous psyche of the quiet protagonist: The image and accompanying music begin cleanly and classically, the track opening with strings and piano over a quiet, French monologue. Together, they dissipate into visual and audio noise; the portrait becomes pixilated into a grid of dots, colors flash and invert while the music becomes discordant and shrill. "Enough To Drive You Mad" is a four-minute loop that begins with Marie innocently petting her donkey and melts into a trippy, psychedelic narrative that reintroduces the cowboy and Magoo.
Probably most reliant on knowledge of Bresson's original movie, Yasinsky's stop-motion animation "I Choose Darkness" focuses on the Magdalenian parallels of Marie's character through her relationship with the saintly donkey Balthazar and the male characters in the movie. Bresson is known for his reference to actors as models, and has very little dialog in his film, which relies heavily on the subtleties communicated through facial expressions and body language. Rising to the challenge of translating ambiguous emotions through dolls, Yasinsky manages to create a similarly mysterious scenario in which Marie's affection for Balthazar is obvious while her impetus for exposing herself to abusive interactions is unclear.
While film is an inspiration for Yasinsky, the resultant art is all her own. Forcing the lengthy classic concisely into the contemporary gallery setting, Yasinsky creates pieces that have a voice of their own, while stroking the ego of gallery-going film aficionados. Her insights into the characters, creative explorations, and exaggerations of plot demonstrate a love for the source material, coupled with a practiced removal that allows her to dissect it with a compelling and focused panache. (Alex Ebstein)
