From producing music videos to starring in short films to hand-drafting animations, LeRoy Neiman Fellow EXYL packed their summer with an abundance of creative output. While they expressed feeling an immense amount of pressure to do while at Ox-Bow, they simultaneously acknowledged they didn’t feel pressure to succeed. Instead, they gave themself permission to experiment.
“I would define my work as a stubborn love letter,” EXYL said. When asked for clarification they added, “I hate love stories.” This love letter finds its stubbornness in the resistance between EXYL’s tendency to keep their feet on the ground, while also not being able to resist the palpable, anti-gravity force of love that snakes its way into their work. Their practice is rooted in the exploration of communication, people, compromise, and resolution. And while they resist the word narrative being assigned to their work, I can’t help but see an abstract one forming in these concepts, one that speaks to some archetypal experience that can perhaps best be described as simply human.
In the music video they created for Visiting Artist Melina Ausikaitis’s song “He’s Great,” EXYL employs bright lights, quick cuts, jerky camera movements, and minimalist lyric-based animations to make an intoxicating and clever piece. Their film “Conversations with a Koel Bird,” which won the Terry Schwartz Asian Film Prize at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, shows an entire other side of the emotional and stylistic spectrum that EXYL is capable of channeling. Where the music video is fast and sharp, “Conversations with a Koel Bird” is slow and gentle. Present in both is a clear yearning, an element that makes EXYL uncomfortable, but they recognize as essential. “There's an undeniable romance and desire in my films that I don't think I can run away from,” they said. “Maybe it's the Cancer Moon talking,” they added with a smile.
A few of the poems from a series by EXYL. Images courtesy of the artist.
This yearning in connection with community is the element I most appreciate in their work. When EXYL moved from Singapore to Rhode Island, they observed that American creatives often center their practice in research or internal identity. Research, they openly admitted, wasn’t something that dramatically fueled them. While they have toyed with this western emphasis on identity, EXYL provides a fresh lens to their films by exploring identity in relation first to how it connects to community and others beyond the self.
It’s fitting then too, to see EXYL leaning into these communal ethics outside of their own projects. Throughout the summer, they also collaborated with artist and LeRoy Neiman Fellow Jack Holly as one of the actors in Holly’s film “Big Yellow Horse,” which saw its debut with a screening on the meadow during their final week on campus.
As a LeRoy Neiman Fellow, EXYL also participated in a work placement on campus in Housekeeping. “I've always wanted to be part of a small community where everything can be seen and touched by hands and eyes and people that you see and interact with,” EXYL said, “and I feel like [Ox-Bow] was the perfect example of a place that is small enough to do that.” In the day to day work and normalities of Housekeeping they found a sense of comfort in its physical nature, which kept them grounded to the present. “It's a very physical place… you're getting bitten by mosquitoes or you're trying to carry heavy baskets up the stairwells or trying to protect your paper from moisture and dampness.” And though this may sound like a level of hell to some, EXYL spoke of it with affection. This physicality fell in rhythm with EXYL’s natural connection with the here and now.
While EXYL insists they spend most of their time in tune with the present, that doesn’t stop them from actively pursuing their future. This fall, EXYL will take up a residency in the Dirt Palace, a feminist-run space project in Providence, Rhode Island.
EXYL holds a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. The LeRoy Neiman Fellowship Program offers applicants a fully funded opportunity to focus on their work, meet with renowned artists, and grow as members of this unique community. The fellows experience the entire summer session and live on campus where they provide support labor to an arts non-profit and participate in all areas of campus life. By working closely with staff, fellows develop relationships with others who have also made artmaking their lives.
To learn more about the LeRoy Neiman Fellowship Program visit www.ox-bow.org/fellowship-program.
EXYL is a filmmaker and animator born and raised in Singapore. They were trained in painting and drawing, but eventually moved into time based mediums like live action and animation. They work extensively with analogue mediums and sound design.
Their films have shown in internationally acclaimed festivals like Ann Arbor, Singapore International Film Festival, Encounters, San Diego Underground, Flickers Rhode Island, Linoleum and more. They were awarded the Terri Schwartz Asian Film Award at Ann Arbor and Best Animation at National Youth Film Awards Singapore.
They will be attending residencies at Ox-Bow School of Art, Dirt Palace Providence, and I-Park Connecticut in the next year.
This article was written by Engagement Liaison & Storyteller, Shanley Poole and was based on an interview conducted by the author.