Eliza Gelinas

Artist Statement

GRAY AREA (noun)
an ill-defined situation or field not readily conforming to a category or to an existing set of rules.

Panda Chef, Apothekitty, and Magical Manatee live in a fictional, post-revolutionary society. Principles such as cost of living, gender, and daylight savings hold no power over the well-being and motivations of our characters. Liberation from factors that used to cause citizens stress on a daily basis has made it possible for them to freely pursue their passions, or just exist, without the pressure to monetize content for survival. Everyone is assumed to have acclimated peacefully into this utopian lifestyle, but even though their basic needs are being met, individuals experience a lack of support while struggling with mental illness.

Lacking a conventionally linear story or dialogue, GRAY AREA, depicts snapshots of our main characters in conceptual situations through detailed moving imagery and sound. The stills on display from this project, "Panda Chef's Rooftop Garden" and "Accidentally up all night", are accompanied by mood board sketches of Panda Chef staring mindlessly at their phone and sleeping peacefully as well as a bonus painting of ducks with flower hats. Joyful color palettes are juxtaposed with mundanity and serious internal conflict, creating the conundrum of a gray area. The animations rely heavily on scenery and music as tone indicators, while the sound design helps direct the audience's attention to the meticulous detail drawn into every scene and environment. During this short series, we witness Panda Chef and Apothekitty's isolated struggles with dissociation and mania. We also see them tending to plants, enjoying the sunset, listening to music and investigating a mysterious object that washed up on the beach. Simple pleasures and the complexity of mental illness can/ must coexist, and we must destigmatize disability care in order to consider any system a utopia.

Biography

Eliza Gelinas is a multimedia artist, musician, animator, and educator located in Worcester, Massachusetts. They received a Master's of Music degree with a focus in composition from The Hartt School at the University of Hartford in the Spring of 2021, where they organized multiple concerts, scored music for a theater production, and produced a collection of audio-visual projects that feature dance, animation, and poetry. Overlapping multiple forms of art with music has always been rewarding for Eliza, and throughout their career, they've enjoyed collaborating with artists of many different styles and disciplines. When the pandemic hit, and quarantine greatly limited everyone's ability to work on projects together, Eliza used the time in isolation to hone their illustration skills and learn how to animate. They focused to develop a style of lo-fi animation that would perfectly match their electronic compositions and decided to create an album of animated audio-visual pieces for their Master's thesis project. Along the way, they became attached to adorable characters Panda Chef, Apothekitty, and Magical Manatee and put them in animated scenarios to express imagined stories, deep feelings, and sensations that are typically hard to describe. Eliza has recently presented work from their Master's thesis project, GRAY AREA, as a guest artist for the course, "... they think these bodies can't: otherism in classical music composition" at the Berlin University of the Arts, Studium Generale designed by Anthony R. Green, DiscoWorld Volume I zine by Jori Dudzikowski, and the DIY Film Festival in Long Beach, CA produced by Jane Free Productions. They are so thrilled to have the opportunity to share these characters and a peek into their world at the House of Shadows Gallery for the Cutesy exhibition, there could not have been a more fitting theme to showcase the nature of their aesthetic!

Exhibition History (CV)