Erica Bailey
Erica Bailey is a visual artist whose work has spanned sculpture, installation, and video. She resides in Santa Cruz, California, after a decade spent living and working in New York City. Originally from a small-town, working-class family in Ohio, she pursued her higher education at state colleges, earning her MFA in 2007 from University of Cincinnati. Her video work was included in the recent exhibition After (Work) Hours at the Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati. Other exhibitions of note include: So Close, Cuchifritos Gallery + Project Space, NYC; Its memory, the memory of its ribs, its knees, its shoulders, Smack Mellon, NYC; and Bronx Calling: The Third AIM Biennial at the Bronx Museum of the Arts. She has participated in numerous residencies, including: RAiR (Roswell Artist in Residence); LES Studio Program, a program of Artists Alliance, Inc; and BronxArtSpace Summer Residency.
I’m a visual artist obsessed with the power of moving images. I film and edit short videos that seem a lot like moving stills. Because I frequently keep the camera in a fixed position while filming, the motion of the subject is highlighted within the stillness of the frame. I create the videos without regard for beginning, middle, or end and loop them when shown. As a result, they tend to feel like eternal moments or outside of time entirely.
While I sometimes shoot intentionally with an idea in mind, I also record videos like some people take snapshots—to capture a moment—and pull from these videos as source material. I find that ideas frequently emerge through the editing process rather than arriving fully-formed in advance. Even when I start with a concrete idea, it usually changes to some degree in editing.
The moments I tend to record belong to nature: the movement of clouds, water, plants, animals. I attempt to elicit in the viewer the same tenderness I feel towards the world—when I see a plant quiver in the wind, an egg fallen from a nest, the slow blink of an eye, even the lick of a flame. I find being alive and conscious supremely weird and precious, so I point to the things that I marvel at and invite others to join me in marveling.
Threshold, 2019, video, 1:27 looping
Threshold contemplates the blurring of life and death, contrasting the frantic motion of feeding ants with the stillness of a dead hatchling. The scene of transmutation is paired with the constant motion of roiling clouds suggesting the elemental and the sublime. It reveals the bittersweet reality of existence.
•
I would like to express my gratitude to RAiR (rair.org, @rairorg) where I made these videos while in residence.