juan fontanive's motorized flipbooks animate fluttering butterflies + flying birds

juan fontanive’s motorized flipbooks animate fluttering butterflies + flying birds
all images courtesy of juan fontanive

juan fontanive: films without light
danese corey, new york
now through february 6, 2016

from now until february 6, 2016, new york’s danese corey art gallery presents a series of flip book machines by juan fontanive, which dynamically illustrate a collection of flying birds and fluttering butterflies. the cleveland-born creative, who studied at london’s royal college of art, has been developing the motorized devices over the past few years, incorporating colorful images meticulously screen printed onto bristol paper. contained within stainless steel frames, the multiple pages that make up the ‘ornithology’ series each reveal a segment of an illustration, which is seamlessly strung together when the mechanism is powered on. 

ornithology I, 2015
4-color screen print on bristol paper, stainless steel, motor and electronics
4.25 x 5 x 3.75 in.

‘the artist’s flapping hummingbirds and rushing fish are sculptural animations, or perhaps automata: machine-powered facsimiles of life,’ describes art critic gilda williams for the exhibition at danese corey. ‘in many ways, fontanive’s artworks seem strangely possessed, producing curiously moving animals that are neither living nor dead, or creating ghostly systems which seem to float mid-air and follow a pace and logic of their own.’

ornithology I, 2015

ornithology P, 2014
4-color screen print on bristol paper, stainless steel, motor and electronics
12.7 cm x 9.4 cm x 10.1 cm.

ornithology P, 2014

ornithology E, 2013
collage on bristol paper, stainless steel, motor and electronics
23 x 3.7 x 4 in.