Ritornello (What Vincent Said About Red) (2019)
Single channel HD video, stereo.
Digitized archive photo, archive and synthesized sound, animation.
Ritornello originated from a snapshot of my uncle and father standing in a parking lot at the Eisenhower Museum in Abilene, Kansas. Their poses — my uncle stiff-armed in profile, my father a bit more relaxed, hand in pocket — called to mind David Hockney’s subjects in his painting American Collectors (Fred and Marcia Weisman), and for that reason I decided to use the photo as a motif for composition. I originally produced this work in 2012 as Ready, Set, a black and white animated study referencing cubism and counterpoint. I significantly recomposed the work in 2017 for exhibition as a two-story video wall display at the University of Mary Washington, and again 2019, for exhibition at La Mama, New York, in When Black Swallows Red.