黑料不打烊

Sanya Kantarovsky鈥檚 installation at LA><ART combines montage and painting marking  the artist鈥檚 first work in animation. Happy Soul overlays film animation upon a figurative  painting hung in the righthand quadrant of the projection frame. The geometry of the film  registers at the edges of the stretcher in a playful manner that pits the illusion of two  images interacting against formal interventions 鈥� a cartoonish hand brushes against the  seams of the white canvas and creatures fly in and out of the painting changing hues  sporadically.   The painting depicts an isolated male nude gazing back at the viewer, blankly, covering  his sex. The plane of the picture begins to signal a tangible, physical space as the  montage shifts shape and transforms again. In the artist鈥檚 telling, the painting  surrounded by cinema creates a theatrical environment for the static figure as the  animations swirl around him; in one instance a spotlight falls directly on the painted  figure literally signaling his entrance upon the stage. These interplays between the  painterly depiction of the body and that body set in motion, as well as the somatic  presence of the viewer, trace a correlation between an intimate, private space, and a  public, theatrical one.   The animation itself incorporates an alphabetic repertoire of motifs 鈥� images adopted  from previous paintings and drawings feel both generic and rehearsed 鈥� butterflies  flutter, lighting roves the horizon, blank pieces of paper stir in space, watches tick,  hands gesture, smoke bellows. These unresolved illusions set up expectations for a  narrative that never comes into being. Rather, each element creates a mood driven by  visual textures and thus joins the artist鈥檚 painting practice as a system of self-reflexive  motifs, visual puns and allegories. One such example is the animated revolution of the  painting upon an axis that momentarily reveals the painting鈥檚 stretcher bars and linen,  as though it were the backstage entrance to Happy Soul.    The soundtrack to the work consists of two a cappella versions of Motown songs,  Marvin Gayes鈥� What鈥檚 Going On and Smokey Robinson鈥檚 Being with You. The former  addresses a collective body in response to episodes of police brutality in the 1960鈥檚:  鈥淢other, mother There's too many of you crying.鈥� In contrast, the song Being with You embodies individual, intimate desire with lyrics like 鈥淚 don't care what they think about  me and I don't care what they say.鈥� This contrast echoes the duality of interiority and  exteriority, aloneness and togetherness in the animation and painting. The absence of  the expected musical accompaniment allows the content of the lyrics to resonate in a  more potent, and at times uncanny way.