ELM Animation

Using stop motion, JoAnn Elam animates a series of pictures drawn by hand and depicting pink, purple, and blue flowers, trees, and suns. Although the landscapes resemble a child’s drawings and may be described as naive, they are also somewhat menacing, when the flowers and the suns grow bigger on the screen until they invade it completely and make it explode in the viewers’ faces. Next, an animated stick figure is made to walk through various landscapes, with Elam’s hand sometimes appearing on screen, and it eventually plants something in the ground. As in other elements in this collection, Elam perhaps further reflects on our relation to and place within nature, through animation this time.