Crystal Aquarium

A short study of the interior of amaryllis flowers, shot on 16mm film. The central pistol, the stamens and the anthers, which produce the yellow pollen, are set against the colour field of the petals.

Directed by Jayne Parker.

A short study of the interior of amaryllis flowers, shot on 16mm film. The central pistol, the stamens and the anthers, which produce the yellow pollen, are set against the colour field of the petals.

“The music, ‘Blues in B-flat’ by Volker Heyn, performed by cellist Anton Lukoszevieze, provides the framework for The Oblique. The title comes from an instruction in the score: ‘oblique down stroke’ — a call to the cellist to use an oblique bow. In the film branches of magnolia extend into the empty cavity of the cello, the space where sound resonates.” (JP)

The film takes its name from the place where it was filmed, the triforium of London’s Westminster Abbey, a gallery hidden from view for 700 years, that runs sixteen metres high above the floor of the nave. Accompanied by Laurence’s Crane’s music, the film holds the stillness and quietude of the triforium, the accumulation of centuries of ascending prayer.

A young woman shakes eels out from between the sheets of a bed. She sews the eels on to a sheet, then cuts them away and they fall to the ground. A dilemma. Jayne Parker discovered film as a medium when she was a sculpture student at Canterbury College of Art (1977-80). In early works, objects, performance and gesture were combined by the camera to explore space, duration and the physical body. The images in these early films were both literal and metaphoric, depicting exact events but also creating physical and personal associations for the viewer. Ideas are evoked in images rather than words; ordinary actions are also enigmas.

Early film by Jayne Parker.

In Stationary Music Jayne Parker finds an external shape for an internal process - Katharina Wolpe playing her father's 1925 Sonata.

A woman stands in the deep end of an empty and disused swimming pool. She wipes her face and stomach with her hands to clean away blood. She places her hands on the outstretched arm of a man who lifts her into the air and catches her where she falls. An eel swims, its gills flutter, opening and closing with the sound. The woman settle the eel in her arms and holds it against the body. When she swims she breathes out underwater.

A confrontation/statement with fragments of dialogue between a mother, a daughter and a cameraman.

A film in three acts, each act prefaced by a short circus act. Act 1 – Cutting liver, Act II – Ironing, Act III – Plucking Eyebrows. Three potentially violent domestic activities performed by a woman. Jayne Parker discovered film as a medium when she was a sculpture student at Canterbury College of Art (1977-80). In early works, objects, performance and gesture were combined by the camera to explore space, duration and the physical body. The images in these early films were both literal and metaphoric, depicting exact events but also creating physical and personal associations for the viewer. Ideas are evoked in images rather than words; ordinary actions are also enigmas.

Two contrasting portraits of magnificently strong women: champion body builder Andrulla Blanchette and trapeze artist Vicki Amedume. Strength displayed and strength employed.

Short film by Jayne Parker.

In 'I Dish' a naked woman dredges in filthy water. What is she looking for? Gold? Something she's lost? She brings up a series of barbaric-looking bits of metal, nasty looking hooks. In a film which has considered notions of nourishment, sex, love, cleanliness, silence, obsession and compulsion, Parker demonstrates her poetic by letting imagery have its mystery, resonate unforcedly on its own terms.

In this film, the cellist is both a musician and a protagonist. In the final section he must introduce a second bow to play on the underside of the strings, a strangely intrusive act. The film opens in a music repair shop and we see the interior of a cello - the space where music resonates.