Shaan Syed

8 April 2004 - 15 May 2004
Opening Reception 8 April 2004 6pm

Peephole:

Two Dogs

Shaan Syed, who works primarily as a painter, for his exhibition at Mercer Union has produced Two Dogs, a hand-drawn animated short film showing two dogs in an ongoing and repeated dance of play and seduction. The film will constantly loop on a monitor through the PeepHole, acting as a tiny voyeuristic music box, emphasizing the intimacy of the drawing and the action represented on film. Two Dogs will also be screened as part of Images Film and Video Festival 2004.

Brochure Text by Shaan Syed

There is a brutal but bizarre sweet truth to seeing two dogs fucking.

Two Dogs is a hand-drawn animated short film showing two dogs in an ongoing and repeated dance of play and seduction. Each of the seven hundred and twenty frames that make up the animation were drawn on separate mylar sheets. The drawings were laid on top of each other so that the remnants of action could be seen through the translucency of the paper. As an artist who works primarily as a painter, drawing for this animation was an experiment that both informed and was informed by my work on canvas. Anticipating the individual movements that would come to make up the animation as a whole proved a new CHALLENGE, but it also felt remarkably similar to an intuitive brushstroke. The labour-intensive process of creating such a short representation of seemingly insignificant action spoke to me of the fleetingness of individual action and the transient yet permanent nature of experience and memory.