Booksigning by Nicky Hamlyn

British filmmaker Nicky Hamlyn's mostly silent films are concentrated, focused on the relationship between camera and place, maker and materials. Subtle shifts in focus, single-frame sequences, or time-lapse photography alter our perception of a tree, a wall, a garden trellis, a shadow, or a reflection. Space is alternately flattened and expanded. The gap in a fence, the opening between two sheets hanging on a laundry line reframe the outdoors, and nature in close-up becomes abstract and intensely colored, surprising us with its patterns, variability, and the sheer beauty of the mundane. Hamlyn's recent book, Film Art Phenomena, investigates just such aspects of experimental film as well as other perceptual and conceptual explorations through the work of masters such as Stan Brakhage, Malcolm Le Grice, and Michael Snow, and younger artists including Karen Mirza and Brad Butler and Jennifer Nightingale. Hamlyn will screen a selection of works explored in his book, as well as a number of his own beautiful films.

Film Art Phenomena is available in the Museum Store for $28.95; purchase a copy at the screening and receive a 10 percent discount!

Hamlyn will appear at San Francisco Cinematheque on March 2. Information: (415) 552-1990.