STACEY STEERS – EDGE OF ALCHEMY
2017-03-20Edge of Alchemy concludes a trilogy of films including Phantom Canyon (2006) and Night Hunter (2011) that examine the psychological terrain of women’s inner worlds. By way of a painstaking and labor-intensive process, Steers assembled over 6,000 handworked photo collages, re-imagining American silent film actors Mary Pickford and Janet Gaynor in a phantasmagoric narrative of creation and monstrous hybridities inspired by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Fragments of historical etchings and photographs are combined to construct surreal settings: dreamlike topographies where barren fields are covered with dead bees and chartreuse flowers, and dark recesses where laboratories lost in time are outfitted with strange ironwork and ominous red beakers. Steers’ collage technique is layered, intimate and suggestive, and the fantastastical lifeworlds her collages embody reflect upon “the way we process experience and form memories subliminally,” as noted by the artist. Edge of Alchemy also reveals the startling emotional immediacy in early silent film performances by lingering over “fleeting expressions and extend(ing) them in a way that” richly expands what Steers cogently defines as “a state of interiority.” The film is accompanied by an original score by Lech Jankowski (Brothers Quay) and will be screened in its entirety during the exhibition’s run.
Exhibition runs through to April 15th, 2017
Catharine Clark Gallery
150 Minna Street
Ground Floor
San Francisco
CA 94105
