ARTIST STATEMENT
Ghost Rider 6 (last round), 2003
The series entitled Ghost Rider comprises of six videos. Each video consists of selected sequences of footage which Jeannette Ehlers has retouched by removing the people in them and leaving only their shadows. Ghost Rider 6 (last round) is inspired by the old American Western Gun Smoke. Like a surgeon, she performs simple but significant operations on the appropriated material; she – with a borrowed surgical process – “removes” parts of the pictures. In this way Ehlers shifts the focus of the pictures away from their original context. These operations take a very long time, requiring her to work frame by frame on video sequences containing 25 frames per second. The Ghost Rider series lays the methodological foundation for Ehlers’ later and most recent work. In this body of work she addresses critical questions revolving around difficult issues such as Denmark's role as a slave trade nation. This fact is a part of Danish cultural heritage that is often overlooked in historiography.
BIOGRAPHY
An experimental approach is a characteristic feature of Jeannette Ehlers’ work. For years she has created cinematic universes that delve into ethnicity and identity which are inspired by her own Danish / West Indian background. She challenges and explores the ability of film to communicate in a visually fascinating and engaging language. Creating imaginative stories with both edge and sharpness, her work still retains a broad appeal. Editing, image manipulation, and the use of found objects are often seen as a feature of the artist’s photo- and video-based works. In this fashion, meaning and identity are explored in an advanced and spontaneous sense.
Artist's website: jeannetteehlers.dk
