Karen Yasinsky was born 1965 in her Hometown of Pittsburgh, PA and now lives and works in Baltimore, MD. She studied at Yale University School of Art, New Haven, CT, 1992; New York Studio School, New York, NY, 1990; and Duke University, Durham, NC, 1988. Yasinsky’s stop-motion films appeal to her audience’s empathy with stories that revolve around desire in its many forms. Using hand-made puppets with painted clay heads and stuffed fabric bodies that she arrays against sparse, simple sets, Yasinsky directs her creations through lonely scenes of everyday life. The puppets move awkwardly with limited range of motion and facial expressions. There are no words or dialogue, which creates a kind of haunting and surreal narrative that plays out largely within the physical and emotional lives of the characters. In her film La Nuit (2007), a man conjures the image of his wife as a bride dancing underwater. Inspired by Jean Vigo’s lyrical 1935 film L’Atalante, Yasinsky’s stop-motion animation is accompanied by an evocative score by musician Winston Rice, a frequent collaborator of the artist’s. Her works have been exhibited widely, including at the UCLA Hammer Museum (2002), the Wexner Center for the Arts (2007), SculptureCenter (2007), the Zentrum für Kunstund Medien in Karlsruhe (2003), and MoMA PS1 Contemporary Art Center (2001). Yasinsky was also the recipient of a 2010 Baker Award.
(Here is a link to view film): “La Nuit” (2007) http://vimeo.com/14791870
MY OPINION: I Think its quite intriguing how she uses cartoons and puppets to tell a story. Whether it is intimate, triumphant, or showing despair.
tmpirela 