Suzan Pitt, 1979
“I had a garden where I grew Asparagus from seed - it’s a very primitive vegetable going back to the time of the dinosaurs. It comes out of the ground as a phallic stalk, pointy and purple green, the essence of a beautiful masculine form. But then as summer passes it stretches tall and becomes a delicate fern, seen on roadsides tilting in the wind, the essence of the feminine like long strands of tangled hair in the breeze. I thought of it as a beautiful symbol of sexuality. From that I made a visual poem about the creative process, taking the role of the magician/artist as the protagonist who ushers the viewers through her search for the essence of the creative forces which rule and drive our existence.”
— Suzan Pitt
Asparagus is a spirited analogy of daydreaming, one which recalls Jung’s description that "images are pregnant”. Each image yields to the next. So long as this genesis continues, linearity is of little concern. To emulate the mind’s peristalsis, to invigorate each moment anew, Pitt incorporates every possible animation technique; she nourishes the senses while posturing philosophical symbols of the mind, desire, and control.
On the plenum of 60s and 70s animation, Pitt has written: “there is something of the 60's and the 70's there in the film - acid and hallucinogens and spectacular insight and the trance of getting lost and being found.” Manifest in her approach to filmmaking, hand-crafted animation shot on 35mm, Pitt’s animation folds unto itself as a maelstrom of colour and textural variety. To enter at any point would yield the same result. It is an assemblage, not a succession; a hovering force of appetising visuality, one faithful to cinema as a kinetic prism.
