Aves: Magnificent Frigate Bird, Great Flamingo, 1973

16 mm color film (23 minutes)

Camera: Herman Kitchen

Sound: Jack Baran

Editor: Linda Leeds

Nancy Graves statement, 1973: "We have tried to achieve a multilayered motile space — if you will — by means of the disparate motion of overlapping forms in flight. The frigate bird and flamingo were selected for their distinct flight profile and unique movement. The filmic frame is a translation of my drawings. Sequential structuring of related form in flight establishes the flow of content. The frame is contained in and moves through a limited sky determined in each segment largely by the peculiarities of the flight. Flight motion empirically introduces a perimetal illusion of space as well as an illusion of distance between the film surface and viewer."

Image: Film still photos by Jordan Tinker, published in Nancy Graves 1970 –1980, exhibition catalogue, Ameringer Yohe Fine Art, 2006, p. 26.

Izy Boukir, 1970

16mm color film (20 minutes)

Director: Nancy Graves

Music: Philip Glass

Camera: David Anderson

Sound: Jack Baran

Editor: Linda Leeds

Nancy Graves statement, 1971: "Izy Boukir  contains footage filmed in the Sahara during eighteen days. I wanted to extend sequences [from earlier films] and to a greater degree permit the animal motions to determine structure. An Arriflex [camera] was often positioned five to ten feet from the animals. In New York, partite animal forms were separated into two segments: as walking and as graduated motion. Through the edited sequential duration, camel morphology vies with the viewer's inherent anthropomorphism. For me this film is the most successful in that the impression of these animals as primordial beings existing in barren yet awesomely beautiful surroundings far outweighs a consciousness of complicated editing and sound relationships."

Image: Film still photos by Jordan Tinker, published in Nancy Graves 1970 – 1980, exhibition catalogue, Ameringer Yohe Fine Art, 2006, p. 17.

Reflections on the Moon, 1974

16 mm black and white film (33 minutes)

Camera: David Anderson and John Barone

Editor: Linda Leeds

Made with the cooperation of Goddard Institute of Space Studies, NASA, NY

Nancy Graves: "[Reflections on the Moon] explores as black and white abstraction the passage of motion picture film over a static surface comprised of 200 stills of lunar surface. Film sequences are structured by the camera motion over the field, by reversing the filmed image, by inversion of the static image, by the use of the zoom, the pull back, pan: from top to bottom and reverse. left to right and reverse. Seismic sound was created on an oscillator."

Image: Film still photos by Jordan Tinker, published in Nancy Graves 1970 – 1980, exhibition catalogue, Ameringer Yohe Fine Art, 2006, p. 27.