Elliott earls finds a voice in many mediums

November 3, 2007
Athens Banner-Herald

Elliott earls finds a voice in many mediums
All for Art

by Julie Phillips

Elliott Earls has left his mark.

The multi-discipline artist and head of the 2-D Design Department at the prestigious Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., spent a week as artist in residence at the University of Georgia’s Lamar Dodd School of Art in October. And while Earls has moved on to other places, his impact is still rippling through Athens.

For one, there’s physical evidence in the form of an exhibition at the school’s Main Gallery.

On a recent afternoon, two students walking through the gallery make a negative comment about the violent aspect of a series of photographs from his “Saranay Motel” series. It’s almost funny, the comment, if you really look at the work. Yes, there are blood droplets – at a glance. The photographs depicting a man jumping into or out of a bed in a cheap motel seem to indicate a bloody shoot-out.

But on closer examination, there’s something synthetic about the blood – it’s clearly been added to the photographs after the fact. And the composition itself is comic, the figure balancing, hovering even, in seemingly impossible positions – something like a low-rent version of “The Matrix.” On that note, the violence in the photos is hardly the level of more realistic depictions at any multiplex.

Earls says that’s part of the commentary, a “hyper-violence” to “cue the viewer in to the falsity of it all,” he says. “It’s certainly calling into question this form of cinematic violence,” he adds, noting other works not included in this particular show are even more shocking, though the violence is synthetically manipulated to the point of ridiculousness.

It’s something to think about – that an image intentionally overdone is what it takes to snap us out of our complacency regarding violence.

——

During a morning break before lecturing at the Wolfsonian Museum in Miami Beach, Earls speaks highly of his residency in Athens and says it was one of the most comprehensive looks at his work thus far. Highly respected in the art world, Earls works in virtually every medium, rooted from his background in design – he in fact left a lucrative, to-die-for commercial career with Rudy deHarak (which he worked very hard to achieve) for a life in art.

From digital typography and design, he found his way to experimental theater/performance art then multimedia and filmmaking. He also works in painting, sculpture, music and photography.

While at UGA, Earls conducted a number of workshops with students, delivered a public lecture, performed and screened one of his films at Ciné and even shot some scenes for the film he’s currently working on, “The Saranay Motel.”

The comprehensive nature of Earls’ work was part of what drove Mark Callahan, assistant director of ICE (Ideas for Creative Exploration) and Nora Wendl, gallery director at the Lamar Dodd, to bring Earls to UGA in the first place.

Callahan and Wendl say they see Earls as an inspiration and role model, in part as a prolific artist making a career with his work, and as someone who works in a variety of disciplines.

To boot, “the scale of this project is historic for the school,” says Callahan.

“It was a University-wide residency, not just the school of art,” says Wendl, “and that’s something that we want to do more of.”

While it’s harder to quantify the impact Earls had on the students, Wendl and Callahan believe it was certainly felt.

And no doubt it’s probably still being felt by miffed audience members at DT’s Down Under, a little club on Clayton Street where Earls had some fun with performance art during his stay.

In character as Dougie G, the woefully unsuccessful rap artist/protagonist in his “Saranay Motel” film, he donned a lavender leisure suit and took to open mic night at DT’s, accompanied by two students – a stand-up bass player and a woman costumed as a very pregnant but very enthusiastic groupie of Dougie G (clad in short-shorts, no less).

Earls, a self-described pretty good clawhammer banjo player, offered a mix of his hillbilly/hip-hop as his accomplices chimed in to a reaction from the audience he describes as “stunned silence.”

Filming the performance for inclusion in the movie, he says it offers a new perspective to live vicariously through the characters he plays in his performances.

As for the variety of mediums in which he works, Earls says he doesn’t take any of his endeavors lightly.

“You can’t be a dilittante – the problem of having such a broad base is when you don’t understand the history or tradition of anything – there’s a thinness to the work,” he says.

But of course, that isn’t to say Earls takes himself excessively seriously.

If the film, performance art and synthetically violent photographs aren’t evidence enough, there are the self-portraits in bronze also included in the show, titled “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, (dedicated to Friedrich Nietzsche),” and “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man with Pig Nose.”

The works don’t quite do the artist’s face justice. In fact, the cyclop-beast busts are cartoonish renditions he likens to the mythological creature Anubis, and are not just an offering of the lighter side of the artist, but a bit of a spoof on the many newly created “ridiculous bronze figures in the urban landscape.”

After all, the reaction viewers have to art is most important, with the ultimate goal being to “create connection between humans beings,” Earls says. “That is what brings vitality to any work.”

Artist showcases multimedia in Athens

October 17, 2007
Red & Black UGA student newspaper

Artist showcases multimedia in Athens
‘Mixed mediums’ fill works
by Mandy Rogers 

Elliott Earls has dabbled in nearly every artistic medium imaginable, including graphics, music, film and sculpture.

This week, he’s bringing his works to Athens, hosting lectures and film screenings, conducting a workshop and opening an art exhibition.

“I told him what a great music town Athens is, so come spend a week here,” said Mark Callahan, associate director of Ideas for Creative Exploration, a project-based program involving students, faculty and the community.

Callahan first heard of Earls at Cranbrook during his graduate study there, and then saw him perform a one-man show in Detroit.

“He was interacting with video, playing characters on the video and using instruments to trigger different stuff,” Callahan said. “It was really innovative and really kind of blew my mind.”

Earls began art at a camp in Ohio when he was 5 years old. He said he won a contest to make the “strangest hat” and never looked back.

Towards the end of high school, Earls said he explored graphics as a way to make a living in the arts. From there he attended Rochester Institute of Technology in New York to hone his craft.

“Still to this day, I look back on that time very fondly,” Earls said. “I studied figure drawing, 2-D, 3-D designs. The basics of form.”

Earls has received accolades in his work, including the Emerging Artist Grant from Wooster Group in Manhattan, the chance to perform at the Exit Festival outside of Paris and forming the Apollo Program Studio, the studio aspect of his work.

“I always made electronic music and started working towards acoustic music,” Earls said. “I met this totally amazing mandolin player (Benjamin Teague), and we began writing strange, bluegrass, folk songs and started building a band.”

That band, The Venomous Sons of Jonah, will perform at the two sets this weekend at Athens Ciné, coinciding with the screening of Earls’ experimental film “Catfish” and clips of his unfinished project “The Saranay Motel.”

Though trained as a graphic designer, Earls said his favorite kind of art is mixing the various mediums he’s learned.

“‘Catfish’ combines animation, live action and performance work,” Earls said. “It’s kind of a documentary of my work. [It] was in a lot of ways about removing the narrative.”

His new movie brings the narrative back with a story of two of Detroit’s least talented hip-hop musicians and their “rags-to-riches-to-rags story” where they find success but lose it all.

His exhibition opens this weekend at Lamar Dodd School of Art and stays through December.

“I produce photographs and objects that are tangentially related to the event, basically sets for the film,” Earls said. “The exhibition will have some of those as well as sculptures, photographs, bronze busts and clay board etchings.”

The workshop Earls is teaching will bring students with an art or music background together to work on “The Saranay Motel.”

Earls will show the class some unfinished scenes of his film and examine the skills those in attendance can bring to it.

“We’re gonna try and brainstorm some small scene to shoot in high definition,” Earls said. “They can actually be in the film.”

Callahan said the workshop is a valuable experience for students at the University.

“The idea is to bring together students who want to be a part of it from all different areas,” Callahan said.

Earls’ week of residence in Athens is jam-packed with a list of eclectic activities, but he said he’s excited.

“I’ve never been to Athens before, and I’ve heard it’s a pretty hip place.”

Elliott Earls Residency

ICE is pleased to announce a special week-long event with visiting artist Elliott Earls.

Workshop
First session: Monday, October 15 at 3 p.m.
ICE Studio, Tanner Building room 101

Students from all disciplines are invited to participate in a workshop with Elliott Earls beginning Monday at 3 p.m. at ICE. Earls will screen scenes from his feature length film in progress “The Saranay Motel” and discuss the project with students. After discussion, willing interdisciplinary participants will be broken into small teams to collaborate on creating a scene for the film. The scene potentially will include original music, motion graphics, acting, props and set design.

Public Lecture
Tuesday, October 16 at 5:30 p.m.
Student Learning Center Room 102
Free and open to the public.

In a world gone mad with fundamentalism, fascism and fear, Elliott Earls attempts to draw parallels between the artists of the post World War I avant-garde and the present day. Utilizing his own work as a springboard for discussion, Earls highlights the critical and timely relevance of the work of German artist John Heartfield, and discusses an interdisciplinary approach to work. In a presentation replete with motion graphics, experimental film clips and music, Earls outlines a potential role for the contemporary artist that draws inspiration from the bravery of Heartfield. Earls also discusses his approach to integrating performance, music, objects and graphics into a unified and cohesive body of work.

Performance and Film Screening
Thursday, October 18
Ciné, 234 W. Hancock Ave. in downtown Athens

Performances at 8 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.
$5.00 or $2.00 with student ID
Advance tickets available at Cine box office, (706) 353-3343

Film screening at 8 p.m.
Free and open to the public.

The work of UGA visiting artist Elliott Earls will be featured in a special evening of events at Ciné, downtown Athens’ art house theater and cafe, on Thursday, October 18. Earls will perform two live sets in a program entitled “Excerpts from The Saranay Motel” and screen digital video from “Catfish” and his current work in progress, “The Saranay Motel”.

In May of 2002, Earls, in association with Emigre Inc. released “Catfish”, a 55-minute film on DVD. “Catfish” traces Earls work from the lab to the stage in a highly manipulated digital film incorporating, animation, stop motion photography, drawing, typography and live action into a seamless performance documentary. “The Saranay Motel”, begun in late 2005, is a work in progress comprised of four basic elements: a feature length digital film, art objects, a performance piece, and music.

Departmental Colloquium
Friday, October 19 at 12:20 p.m.
Room 53, Fine Arts Building
Free and open to the public.

Earls will discuss his career as a performance artist in a Theatre and Film Studies departmental colloquium.

Exhibition
Elliott Earls: Selected work from “Bull and Wounded Horse” and “The Saranay Motel”
Opening Reception: October 19, from 6 – 8 p.m.
Main Gallery
Visual Arts Building
Free and open to the public.

Objects accompany all of Earls’ work along with his music, performance, and posters, he creates works of substantial materials and finishes. On exhibition at Lamar Dodd School of Art Main Gallery will be artifacts from the processes of his two most recent projects, “Bull and Wounded Horse”, which incorporates traditional media, including two bronze busts, and “The Saranay Motel”, from which Earls exhibits large digital photographs.

About Elliott Earls
Elliott Earls first gained international recognition as a designer of digital typography in the 1990s and expanded his practice to include one-person performances utilizing interactive technology of his own design, earning a prestigious Emerging Artist Grant from
The Wooster Group in New York. In 1995, Earls formed the Apollo Program, a studio devoted to experimentation with nonlinear digital video, spoken word poetry, music composition and design. Earls’ work has been shown in exhibitions and festivals around the world, and is featured in the permanent collection of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution. In 2001, Earls was appointed designer-in-residence and head of the 2-D Design Department at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. While at Cranbrook his artistic practice has continued to broaden by using film production as a method to generate digital photography, sculpture, paintings, and the music of his band, The Venomous Sons of Jonah.

The Elliott Earls Residency is supported by the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts, Lamar Dodd School of Art Visiting Artist and Scholar Series, Lamar Dodd School of Art Galleries, Department of Theatre and Film Studies, Ideas for Creative Exploration (ICE), and Ciné.

For more information about Earls, visit http://www.theapolloprogram.com.

Elliott Earls

Elliott Earls first gained international recognition as a designer of digital typography in the 1990s and expanded his practice to include one-person performances utilizing interactive technology of his own design, earning a prestigious Emerging Artist Grant from The Wooster Group in New York. In 1995, Earls formed the Apollo Program, a studio devoted to experimentation with nonlinear digital video, spoken word poetry, music composition and design. Earls’ work has been shown in exhibitions and festivals around the world, and is featured in the permanent collection of the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution. In 2001, Earls was appointed designer-in-residence and head of the 2-D Design Department at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. While at Cranbrook his artistic practice has continued to broaden by using film production as a method to generate digital photography, sculpture, paintings, and the music of his band, The Venomous Sons of Jonah.

The Elliott Earls Residency is supported by the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts, Lamar Dodd School of Art Visiting Artist and Scholar Series, Lamar Dodd School of Art Galleries, Department of Theatre and Film Studies, Ideas for Creative Exploration (ICE), and Ciné.

For more information about Earls, visit http://www.theapolloprogram.com.

ICE Open House: Words & Pictures

Friday, September 28 at 6:30 PM
ICE Studio – Tanner Building Room 101

An early evening presentation of projects and social hour at ICE. Katherine McGuire will unveil “What Lies Here”, this semester’s ICE window installation. A reading by Patrick Fadely, whose poetic practice has been shaped by an interest in improvised music. Jordan Dalton demonstrates “Room-Poem”, a procedure for creating poetry over time with speech recognition software. The event is free and open to the public.

Katherine McGuire is a graduate candidate in printmaking at the Lamar Dodd School of Art. What Lies Here will create a street level interaction with the historic Tanner Building near UGA’s north campus and downtown Athens.
http://www.thelastfewyears.com/

Patrick Fadely is an undergraduate candidate majoring in English. He will present work which oscillates between the intimate and the abstract, and which gestures toward some measure of reconciliation between lyrical and social forms of responsibility.

Jordan Dalton is pursuing an interdisciplinary major that combines courses from Computer Science, English, Drama, and Digital Media. A version of “Room-Poem” was recently installed in the entrance of the Visual Arts Building where it delighted and enthralled the masses.

Mike Essl

ICE Visiting Artist Mike Essl
Monday, August 27, 5:30 PM
Visual Arts Building lecture hall 116

Mike Essl was a partner at the award-winning design firm The Chopping Block, Inc., which he cofounded in 1996 with a fellow graduate of the Cooper Union. During his six years with the firm, Essl’s clients included Sony, Nickelodeon, National Geographic, MTV, Intel, Microsoft, Roadrunner Records, the band They Might Be Giants, and the rapper Warren G. After receiving his MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, Mike went out on his own and has done work for Columbia University, Chronicle Books, and DC Comics.

Essl has taught at Parsons School of Design, School of the Visual Arts, and is now an assistant professor at the Cooper Union. Essl’s work has been recognized in numerous publications and by the AIGA and the Art Directors Club. In 2003 his work with the Chopping Block was featured in the National Design Triennial. Essl was recently a juror for PDN Pix magazine as well as ID magazine’s Media Design review.