Nancy Cervenka

These sculptures are made of movie film. The colors and texture are the actual characteristics of the various types of film stock, processed and unprocessed, overexposed and underexposed. Some of the footage has been manipulated, bleached, scraped and drawn on.

I discovered this process while pursuing a masters degree in cinematography. As a filmmaker, I shot, edited and manipulated the film for the sole purpose of projecting it on the screen, yet I was just as fascinated with the material itself. I enjoyed handling the long strands of celluloid, watching the tiny images slide between my fingers, revealing blends of color, movement, patterns and flashes of light.

Each form is created by spiraling the film. Within each strand of film, time is represented in linear succession as 24 frames per second. Upon closer inspection, the patterns contained within each sculpture reveal themselves as overlapping bands of still images. With the aid of a magnifying lens, recognizable and abstract images are discovered. This information acts as a story line of the artist’s process as a filmmaker, and the ongoing relationship between the filmmaker and the footage.

The sculptures have become containers of time, fossil like forms made from a disappearing medium—movie film. The process becomes my meditation-documenting my search for center, balance and focus.