Jodie Mack

White River Junction, Vermont, USA

STATEMENT OF ARTIST PRACTICE

Combining the formal techniques and structures of abstract/absolute animation with those of cinematic genres, my handmade films use collage to explore the relationship between graphic cinema and storytelling, the tension between form and meaning. Musical documentary or stroboscopic archive: my films study domestic and recycled materials to illuminate the elements shared between fine-art abstraction and mass-produced graphic design. The works unleash the kinetic energy of overlooked and wasted objects and question the role of decoration in daily life.

ARTIST BIO

Jodie Mack’s 16mm films have screened at a variety of venues including the Locarno Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, the New York Film Festival, the Jeonju International Film Festival, and the Viennale. She has presented solo programs at the 25FPS Festival, Anthology Film Archives, BFI London Film Festival, Harvard Film Archive, National Gallery of Art, REDCAT, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Shenzhen Independent Animation Biennale, and Wexner Center for the Arts among others. Her work has been featured in publications including Artforum, Cinema Scope, The New York Times, and Senses of Cinema. She was the 2017/18 Roberta and David Logie/Film Study Center Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and a 2018/19 Fellow at the Film Study Center Fellow at Harvard University. She was a 2019 Artist In Residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts and a 2021 MacDowell Fellow. She is an Associate Professor of Animation at Dartmouth College.

CONTACT

jodiemack.com

EMAIL | VIMEO (password: illusion)

Examples of Collage in Motion

Wasteland No. 2: Hardy, Hearty

Garden ghosts flirt with the weeds of spring, cycling matter[s] and lives and deaths.

From Felix Salten’s Bambi, chapter on Winter:
“Can it be true,” said the first leaf, “can it really be true, that others come to take our places when we’re gone and after them still others, and more and more?” “It really is true,” whispered the second leaf. “We can’t even begin to imagine it, it’s beyond our powers.” “It makes me very sad,” added the first leaf. They were very silent a while.”

Quilting Instructions 1-14

Culled from instructional publications like 101 Fabulous Rotary Cut Quilts and The Joy of Quilting, these cell-based animations, filmed “front and back”, take inspiration from mesmerizing computer graphics. Swelling and contracting in complexity, the loops linger and labor over product and means.

Curses

Made entirely by hand from cut marbled paper, this odyssey of remnants re-imagines a dream-sequence love. Video for the band ROOMMATE.

How Jodie Mack’s “Curses” Was Made

Posthaste Perennial Pattern

Rapid-fire florals and morning bird songs bridge interior and exterior, design and nature.

Yard Work is Hard Work

Simultaneous disillusionment and hope + eternal love in the face of an economic crisis.