Absent/Present (2005-07) is about our outward appearance defining our identity.  With inspiration from Da Vinci’s drapery studies, the video sets out to explore the nature of these figures, filling out the sumptuous cloth while the figures remain anonymous and half-formed. Using various flesh colored cloth over invisible dancers added a layer of political commentary about the significance of skin color to our missing identities. In many cases the cloth seems to float with a persona of its own, without revealing human agency. In the dark gallery these floating forms are magical, enhanced by an ethereal quartet singing a court song of the Da Vinci era.

Absent/Present was created for the invitational exhibit:  Ideas into Objects: Reinterpreting the Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci at the Weston Gallery of the Aronoff Center for the Arts in Cincinnati.  Juror: Kip Eagan.  It was made with Dancers Balinda Craig-Quijada, Julie Brodie, Rachel Esslinger, Sara Murdock and Sarah DeVere and singers Andrea Daly, Courtney Snow, Tim Chenette and Kieran Nulty led by Benjamin Locke.

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