Sandra Gibson

Sandra Gibson
Born in Portland, Oregon, 1968; lives in New York, NY
BFA, 1999, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI; MA, 2010, New York University, NY

Originally trained as a painter, Sandra Gibson has taken the exploration of shape and color to the mechanical medium of film. She treats film as matter, painting, stenciling, and scratching directly on plastic surface and light-sensitive emulsion. After being meticulously worked upon, individual film frames become miniature paintings or collages. The intricate compositions, however, exist to be transformed by the film projector into exhilarating animations of luminous color. Gibson’s handmade process emphasizes the medium’s materiality, exploiting those properties of celluloid that are fundamentally distinct from the electronic recording techniques of video. While Gibson's earlier films were further reworked in manual editing and optical printing, processes that allow for the reordering, multiplication, and repetition of frames, some recent works are produced without mechanical manipulation, effectively treating the film strip like a painter’s canvas. In the 5-minute silent film Outline (2003) unfolds in a burst of color luxuriating in the width of 35mm CinemaScope, a succession of different shapes and textures cascades across the full expanse of the projection screen. Unlike Gibson’s earlier films which include a soundtrack, Outline is purely visual. In conjunction with the wide format, the film takes both the painterly and cinematic qualities of her work to conclusion. Gibson has recently moved into yet another direction in making a series of single-roll, Super-8 films, closely framed sketches of nature that are edited in camera. Palm (2003) depicts a gently swaying palm tree against the background of a clear blue sky, its delicate leaves are trembling in the breeze, opening and closing like the fingers of a hand. Bellagio Roll (2003), filmed in the gardens of Bellagio, Italy, shows blooming, sun-drenched flowers that emerge in short, flickering takes. The subject is continued in NYC Flower Film (2003), which consists entirely of single frames of colorful blossoms blooming in New York City. Graceful compositions of light, movement, and color, Gibson's small-gauge films combine the abstract portrait of a place and its particular rhythm with the depiction of ephemeral, fleeting moments that are universally recognizable.
- Henriette Huldisch, Whitney Museum of American Art, NY

Since 2000 she has been collaborating with Luis Recoder (b. 1971, San Francisco, CA), together they unite the rich traditions of the experimental film, particularly its structuralist and materialist strands, and the multi-modal sensibility of expanded cinema that emerged in the 1960s, in which the moving image was woven into the labile space of performance, sound, and audience interaction. Their larger body of work explores this interstice between avant-garde film practice and the incorporation of moving images and time based media into the museum and art gallery. Artforum critic and co-founder of Light Industry, Ed Halter, has written: “In their collaborative film performances, Sandra Gibson and Luis Recoder employ simple mechanical means to hypnotically elaborate ends. Their performances melt the projector’s machine materialism into ethereal experiences.” Their projector performances and installations have exhibited at numerous museums, galleries, and festivals such as the 2004 Whitney Biennial at the Museum of American Art (NY), Performa 09 Biennial at Light Industry (NY), Radical Light at the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive (CA), 09 Sundance Film Festival (UT), Film.Text.Performance.Film at Ballroom Marfa (TX), Conversations At The Edge at the Gene Siskel Film Center (IL), Toronto International Film Festival at Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto), Expanded Cinema: Film als Spektakel, Ereignis und Performance at Hartware MedienKunstVerein (Dortmund), BFI 50th London Film Festival at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (London), Kill Your Timid Notion at Dundee Contemporary Arts (Dundee), 36th International Film Festival Rotterdam (The Netherlands), Improvisacoes Colaboracoes at Serralves Foundation (Porto), and Image Forum Festival at 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art (Kanazawa).

SANDRA GIBSON

Solo Exhibitions
2014   Ace Hotel / Madison Square Park Conservancy, “Park & Parcel,” New York, NY
2013   Robischon Gallery, “Transparency,” Denver, CO
2013   Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, “Projection Performance,” St. Louis, MO
2013   Brooklyn Bridge Park, “Topsy-Turvy: A Camera Obscura Installation,” Brooklyn, NY
2013   Madison Square Park Conservancy, “Topsy-Turvy: A Camera Obscura Installation,” New York, NY
2012
   Courtisane, “Artists In Focus: Gibson + Recoder,” Ghent, Belgium
2012   Craddock-Terry Gallery, “Cinematograph,” Lynchburg, VA
2011   Serralves Foundation, “Improvisações Colaborações: Gibson / Recoder / Block,” Porto, Portugal
2011   School of the Art Institute of Chicago / C.A.T.E., “Aberration of Light,” Chicago, IL
2010   International House of Philadelphia, “Wave Currents,” Philadelphia, PA
2009   Performa / Light Industry, “Entanglements,” Brooklyn, NY
2008
   Redcat, “Projection Performance,” Los Angeles, CA

2008   Solar Gallery, “Untitled,” Vila do Conde, Portugal
2007   University of Virginia Art Museum, “Light Works,” Charlottesville, VA

2007   Palais des Beaux-Arts, “Atmos,” Brussels, Belgium

2006
   Diapason Gallery, “Recent Film Installations,” New York, NY

2005
   Youkobo Art Space, “Gibson + Recoder,” Tokyo, Japan

Group Exhibitions

2014   Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, “Memories Can’t Wait – Film Without Film,” Germany
2014   Microscope Gallery, “No Show,” Brooklyn, NY
2013   Sagamore Hotel / Cricket Taplin Collection, “Framing the Moving Image,” Miami, FL
2013   Viennale, Austrian Film Museum, “Aberration of Light,” Vienna, Austria
2013   Solar Gallery, “Film,” Vila do Conde, Portugal
2013   Gallery Bergen, Bergen College, “Proto-Cinematic Investigations,” Paramus, NJ
2012   Klangraum Krems, Kontraste Festival, Krems, Austria
2012   25FPS Festival, “Aberration of Light” / “ Untitled,” Zagreb, Croatia
2012   Palais des Beaux-Arts, Bozar Electronic Arts Festival, “Untitled,” Brussels, Belgium
2012   Nancy Margolis Gallery, “Permanent Collection,” New York, NY
2012   Heliopolis Gallery, “Color Box”, Brooklyn, NY
2011   Berkeley Art Museum / Pacific Film Archive, “Radical Light,” Berkeley, CA
2011   Centro de Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona, “XPERIMENTA’11” Barcelona, Spain
2011   Toronto International Film Festival, Gallery of Ontario, “Wavelengths,” Toronto, Canada
2010   STUK, “Artefact Festival,” Leuven, Belgium
2010   San Francisco Cinematheque, “Crossroads: Apparent Motion,” San Francisco, CA
2010   Video Dumbo, “Entanglements,” Brooklyn, NY
2009   Tate Modern, “Expanded Cinema: Activating the Space of Reception,” London, England
2009   Sundance Film Festival, “New Frontiers,” Park City, Utah
2008
   Centro de Memoria, “No Cinema,” Vila do Conde, Portugal

2007
   Robischon Gallery, “Light Spill,” Denver, CO

2007   Ballroom Marfa, “Film/Performance/Text/Film,” Marfa, TX

2007   TENT, “Borderline Behavior,” Rotterdam, The Netherlands
2007 
  36th International Film Festival Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
2006   London Film Festival, Institute for Contemporary Art, London, England

2005
   The Kitchen, “Transparent Processes,” New York, NY

2005   21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, “Image Forum,” Kanazawa, Japan

2004
   Whitney Museum of American Art, “2004 Whitney Biennial,” New York, NY

2004   Hartware Medien Kunst Verein, “Expanded Cinema,” Dortmund, Germany

2003
   Museu do Chiado, “Intermittent,” Lisbon, Portugal

2002   P.S.1. MoMA Contemporary Arts Center, “Animations,” New York, NY

2000 
  29th International Film Festival Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Awards / Commissions / Residencies
2013   Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Woodside, CA
2013   Madison Square Park Conservancy, Public Art Commission, New York, NY
2012   Alpert Award in the Arts, CA (Nomination)
2012 & 2001   Ucross Foundation, Clearmont, WY
2012   Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Amherst, VA
2009   Kodak Fellowship Award, Los Angeles, CA
2012, 2007 & 2001   Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Amherst, VA
2003   Museum of Contemporary Cinema Foundation Award, Paris, France
2005   Youkobo Art Space, Tokyo, Japan
2004   New York Foundation For the Arts Award, NY
2003   Museum of Contemporary Cinema Foundation Award, Paris, France
2003   Squeaky Wheel NEA International Digital Residency, Buffalo, NY
2001   Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Helen Bing Fellowship Award, Woodside, CA