The Chittendens
...a mesmerizing, comical, and thrillingly bizarre meditation on the tics and tropes that make up what we call "character" and "relationship."
- The New Yorker
American artist Catherine Sullivan initially trained as an actress, and although she has worked in a variety of media, she is best known for theatre and video work that explores the conventions of performance and role-playing. For her first UK exhibition, Sullivan is showing The Chittendens, a six screen video installation.
The Chittendens was made in collaboration with composer Sean Griffin, who wrote the score for the video. Sullivan then edited the video to highlight the formal dialogue between the actors' gestures and his music.
The Chittendens investigates how a performer's emotional gestures can pervert the logical sequence of a musical score. The work also demonstrates how a conceptual pattern can be reordered and translated to become highly theatrical and cinematic artwork.
The title of the piece is derived from an ins