A visitor entering the Koppelman Gallery might initially feel a little underwhelmed by the number of art pieces on display. The collection named "Untitled," for example, contains only eight 11? by 14?inch mixed media collages. It is easy to take a quick glance at the largely black?and?white collages and leave without a sense of awe. It is not immediately evident that these displayed art pieces make up only a tiny fraction of the extensive number of collages made by Stacey Steers, who spent four years meticulously handcrafting more than 4,000 of them. Her work did not stop there, for she strung them all together to form a silent film that is screened in the gallery as well. With her background in film, rather than fine art, Steers has found a way to incorporate her ideas into an effective multimedia exhibition that is simultaneously disturbing and intriguing.
One of the most striking aspects of the collages is Steers' incorporation of a very bold shade of red against black?and?white patterns. According to an interview with Amy Ingrid Schlegel, director of Tufts University Art Gallery and exhibition curator, Steers revealed that "the monochromatic aspect of the work" is largely based on "19th?century engravings, illustrations and photographs, as well as early silent films, all originally black?and?white materials." She then added red, using only a color pencil, after discovering that it could alter the texture of her work and give a sense of continuity between the collages. By giving the woman in her film a red collar, for instance, Steers skillfully draws attention away from the menacing snakes and moths in her work and toward the living, breathing human being with whom the viewers of the piece are meant to sympathize.
Arguably the most attention?grabbing piece is "Night Hunter," the 15:30 film screened on the wall. For Steers, each second of the film required an average of eight collages. Accompanied by a soundtrack performed by Larry Polansky, a professor of music at Dartmouth College, the film gives the entire room an eerie and fantastical atmosphere and brings Steers' concept alive. It features the late Lillian Gish, who left an impact on Steers for her convincing emotional performance in the movie "Broken Blossoms" (1919). In Steers' "Night Hunter," Gish plays a woman who is obligated to guard the giant eggs that appear at her doorstep against an immense external threat. Multiple scenes involving Gish's subtly expressing anxiety, turning her head towards the window regularly or even just getting up from her chair add to the sense of foreboding that the audience starts to feel after watching just five minutes of the film.
Standing three feet tall, a 10?room black dollhouse is on display near the entrance of the gallery, though it should probably be the last art piece that visitors view. In each of the rooms, there is a mini high?definition screen showing short scenes from the film. Though it is intricately built and shows fine workmanship, the dollhouse serves little purpose besides giving the audience a physical model of the setting that the film is based on. One certainly would not want to watch the film through the small windows of the dollhouse when it is shown on the larger screen, which therefore renders it redundant.
While "Night Hunter" is named after a well?known film starring Gish, "Night of the Hunter" (1955), the exhibition does not draw inspiration directly from the film. There are many parallels between both films, such as the loss of innocence, but ultimately "Night Hunter" should be evaluated on its own. The question of who or what the Night Hunter is and what it stands for remains vague, but its purpose in evaluating a woman's role in domestic circumstances is crucial. This exhibition definitely gives its viewers something to think about, as long as they are willing to learn about the process that Steers went through to create her artwork.
