Transient Curated is pleased to present Summer by Jennifer Panepinto, a series of 93 animated artworks.
Curator's Note
More than most files formats the GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) is finite. It is a series of frames without sound, limited by color and resolution. In order to meet file size requirements for most social platforms, as few frames as possible are used. Despite these limitations, it's Jennifer Panepinto's preferred format in her artistic practice.
In Summer, these limitations of the GIF are reflected in the artist’s impossible wish to preserve the season of Summer and the feeling it inspires. The artworks are sun-soaked, depicting coastlines, farmhouses, and other scenes from summertime in the Northeast and fantasy. The series is inspired by summers spent by the artist at a on the coast of Maine. The artist states, ‘Summer is an exploration of a feeling that I had as a kid during the summer, where I felt like it was a moment of letting go and being in the moment, and noticing the world around us.’ It’s that feeling, and those memories that Panepinto attempts to re-create in these artworks.
To prolong this feeling, Panepinto has created image sequences which appear to loop infinitely. This is accomplished through astute composition and visual mirages, like constant zooms, and the flicker which emanates from all her work.
‘So much of it is looking at the light in the pieces and really trying to capture the flicker that you see sometimes, where it feels like just for that split second, it’s expanding the moment by making it into a piece that's longer than the fraction of a second.’
In looping, the works hold the viewer longer- striving to take up more time than their duration.
While Summer has to come to an end, within these loops, it lasts forever. It is preserved, crystallized in the glossy reflections. While we get older, these works remain the same, flickering loops reaching for a feeling they can’t quite hold onto. Summer has to accomplish all of this with the efficiency required of its’ file format. Panepinto works within these limits consciously, using every fraction of the image sequences she creates to draw the viewer into this feeling which exists so firmly in her memory.
-Mackenzie Davenport
CURATED