Sketch

The Sketch Gallery was proud to present the film: The Blessing by Claire Hooper. The room was fully painted white, with white leather couches scattered across the room, so the viewer could see all angles of the film. This panoramic film on peace, violence, space, art, seizures, and pretty much every topic you could imagine. The film featured a man in an art gallery who abruptly has a seizure after looking at an art piece. Who knew that art could have such an impact on someone? Interrupting the seizure scene sequence from time to time, Hooper used space images in her film, perhaps to decrease the level of violent seizures and to make peace. The outer space pictures were actually quite soothing and lovely. Prisms became ritual in the film as well. First, a man would hold a prism for a scene or two. Second, when filming the man suffering from a seizure, a shot was filmed as if the man was at the other end of a kaleidoscope.
To sort out the confusion, we remained to watch the film a second time. At this point, one could not help but wonder if we were in some kind of mental institution. Checking out the surroundings of the room again, the white walls and the white cushioned couches were very calming, perhaps a bit too calming. Then we noticed that there were no sharp corners to the room. The Art Deco style of the room was very smooth and round. Coincidence? Maybe….
The film very well kept to one of its major themes of peace and violence. The scenes of meditation and the peacefulness of outer space were relaxing. The violence of the seizure and a scene of restless sleep were quite eerie. There were high points and low points, kind of like mixing cocaine and alcohol and trying to find a happy medium.

Mary Brock
P.S. Undoubtedly, the toilettes were the most amazing thing there !!