2010: The films of Martha Colburn

(featuring live music by Thollem Mcdonas, piano)

Martha Colburn is a stop-action animator whose work is inspired by American and European history. Fusing her animation and found footage into live 16mm performances, she performs internationally with the group Deerhoof and her own ensemble of musicians to create narratives using 1970s film re-enactments, pilgrim films, puppet films, and re-filmed Godzilla movies, to name but a few. To accompany her films will be local Bay Area pianist impresario Thollem Mcdonas who will create a seamless spontaneous improvised sound track.

Ms. Colburn currently lives in Long Island City, New York. She is most well-known for her animation films, which are created through puppetry, collage, and paint on glass techniques. She has made over forty films since 1994. Colburn’s style of collage fuses pop culture and political imagery with an aesthetic that is simultaneously fantastical, painterly, punk, and avant-garde. Many of her appropriated images are painted over with a diverse variety of paints which integrate them with the drawings and textures that are completely her own. Colburn makes her animations by facing the camera directly downward at the collaged panels below. She has always rejected the computer program as a means to create her animations. The “hands-on,” non-technological quality that defines her process keeps it at a personal and intimate level. Color is another very important aspect of Colburn’s films. Although her 2006 film "Meet Me in Wichita" deals with disconcerting subject matter, Colburn still chooses bright colors to define the film’s color scheme. It is these types of contradictions in Colburn’s work which deepen her visual and conceptual complexity.

Thollem Mcdonas began working with Ms. Colburn two years ago on her film "Triumph Of The Wild" Parts 1 and 2. The connection between her collage work and his improvisation create a unique memorable experience for viewers and new music fans alike. Thollem, was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area of Irish and Cherokee descent. His extensive travels as a performer and teacher have covered much of the North American continent and Europe. He is a founding member of several innovative ensembles all of varying and disparate music. In the past 5 years alone he has added 18 albums to his discography on 6 different vanguard labels in 3 different countries. His music is diverse, with each album and every concert exploring a variety of approaches and paths, resulting in dramatically different outcomes. Thollem is a recipient of the 2010 US Artists International Award as the founder and Artistic Director of Estamos Ensemble. He was commissioned by The Limon Dance Company for a large-scale piece in commemoration of their 50th year anniversary. This previous September he was invited to perform the late works of Claude Debussy on the piano on which they were written, as well as his own comprovisations with Stefano Scodanibbio. This will be the first album (OnDebussy'sPianoAnd...) ever recorded on Debussy's piano.

Artist (photo by Photographer)