Janie Geiser used to do scores of illustrations for The New York Times Book Review, and I was recently reacquainted with her work. She’s a puppet-maker, visual/performance artist, and experimental filmmaker whose work explores the emotional power of inanimate objects, their sense of ambiguity, and their strength of design. Geiser has, for two decades, created innovative, hypnotic works that integrate puppets and performing objects with film and video.
She has a great ability to make children’s toys and seemingly innocent objects resonate with adult fears. Her work is as beautiful as it is eerie. If you have yet to see her work, I’m pleased to introduce her here. (Some projects include “Babel Town” (above), “Lost Motion” (below), and Spiral Vessel (bottom). You can watch them on YouTube here.