Motion in Form

The first in the series:

MOTION IN FORM  

EΛIONI

Oliver Bancroft presents an installation of multi-screen film projections and photography entitled EΛIONI.

A connection to history and narrative are recurring themes in Bancroft's work. His paintings enjoy and wrestle with the weight of art history, while his films engage with the passing moment to address what remains of the past. The subjects of his films are diverse; the travels of an island donkey, a carnivorous butterfly, a song and its singer, a physical encounter at a doctor's surgery. His enjoyment of analogue film has resulted in various forms of presenting film, from single-screen cinematic presentation to gallery and site-specific installations.

EΛIONI (El-ee-o-nee) is a body of work created through engaging with and responding to an olive grove on the Greek island of Aegina. This olive grove, said to be the oldest in Europe, is older than any archaeological remains found in Greek soil. An olive grove existence is completely dependent on people maintaining the trees for the cultivation of its fruit. Unlike the countries many ruins and remains it serves the same purpose now as it did then. The landscape has a 'biblical' presence, its monumental passage through time is present and at the same time incomprehensible. How can one relate to something so vast? The works are in attempts at making historic document, a topographical record of the Elioni olive grove.