Animation Showcase featuring Zoë Blickenstaff, Sarah Franklin, Ava Stapleton, and Dalena Le Truong
Tonight we present four animators with intertwining themes of dreams, trauma, introspection, transformation, textures, layers, rebirth, and love.
Zoë Blickenstaff is a mythopoetic storyteller, a visual alchemist, and a frequent flyer in the world of dreams. The discoveries she makes from her dreams inform the esoteric symbolism present in her various artistic works. Her process of creation involves experimentation, use of metaphor and introspection. Some of her goals are focused around methodically connecting people through animated visuals with use of unconventional modalities; while other goals involve squashing all expectations; allowing chaos and disconnect to run their course. There are prevalent themes of metamorphosis, rebirth and transformation in her life and creative exercises.
Sarah Rae Franklin is a Portland-based, award-winning, multidisciplinary artist focusing her practice on animation, illustration, and creative writing. She was born and raised in the rural Puget Sound area before moving to Portland to pursue a degree in animation at Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA). Franklin is compelled by the intimacy of the taboo, desire, and trauma. She depicts these subjects in her cartoony and gestural art style, creating a playful dialogue with the subjects she addresses. Her film Lone Buck Motel is a love letter to 80’s queer monster movies. Her latest film, Once, a Second Time, harnesses the imagery of the salmon to explore improved depictions of recovering from the trauma of a suicide attempt in film. Franklin harnesses both levity and grimness and integrates them to get at the undiscussed truths of life.
Ava Stapleton is a stop motion animator who currently resides in Portland, OR. She is a recent PNCA grad with a BFA in Animated Arts. Her animated short Scarlett Staccato has received awards for both Best Editing (Screen Power Film Festival) and Best Experimental Film (Oregon Independent Film Festival). Her work is highly texture and feel-based, and she prefers to let the piece find its way through feel. This more interpretive relationship between the audience and work is a driving factor in the kinds of motifs, materials, and sequences that make up her work.
Dalena Le Truong is a non-binary, queer artist who works in a self made studio in Portland, Oregon. They dropped out of art school and ventured off to experiment with claymation and continued to study various subjects and interests. They make art that explores the human condition and everyday battle with trauma and mental illness. Their film Levi Dante features a worm who lives in the left ventricle of the heart — the only world he has ever known. One day he unexpectedly gets ejected out and lands into a place called Earth and quickly falls in love with his newfound experiences.
