Judith Eisler

I spent the summer painting in a garage in northwest Connecticut. These paintings are part of a developing narrative of peripheral cinematic moments. I work from photographs that I take of videos of films. My interest is not so much in the meaning of the image but in the alterations that occur through so many layers of distance. Physical form loses its rigidity. Straight lines waver. Space is a substance composed of interlocking shapes. Nothing in the video still appears as it actually exists, but we take what we see for reality.

The images in this photograph are taken from Dogs in Space, Three Women, and Stay Hungry. Usually my palette is almost monochromatic, but I photographed these movies with a warmer film in order to get more saturated, intense colors. These moments I am describing are interrupted actions. I am trying to paint the sound of a pause. Removed from its original narrative context, the still holds its identity while acquiring new meanings. The images are simultane- ously certain and enigmatic. I want the viewer to be able to bring his own associations and meanings to the paintings. I want to evoke the memory of a landscape that was never really there.