Object Details
- Exhibition Label
- Dwinell Grant’s pioneering film Contrathemis is a stop-motion animation made from more than 4,000 colored-pencil drawings and paper collages that were individually photographed and sequenced on 16mm film. Geometric shapes swim across pulsating hues of rich color in a stylistic progression Grant labeled “organized field.” A dynamic lighting sequence was constructed using automobile headlights covered with colored gels to backlight each frame. Eager to break free from the margins of the page, Grant drove static compositions into motion, celebrating the infinite potential of shape, color, and time.
- Watch This!: Revelations in Media Art, 2015
- Data Source
- Smithsonian American Art Museum
- Artist
- Dwinell Grant, born Springfield, OH 1912-died Doylestown, PA 1991
- Date
- 1941
- Credit Line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Patricia and Phillip Frost
- Copyright
- © 1941, Jean O’Hart Grant
- Medium
- 16mm film, color, silent; 08:00 minutes
- Type
- Media Arts
