About Sky Bones
Artist Domingo Cisneros extracts the inspiration for his art from nature, culling materials from the silent expanse of the Mexican desert and the boreal forest of the his adopted home in Quebec’s Laurentians, and drawing from the cycles of life and time to shape his vision. Poised within the rhythms of these cycles, his installations fuse the permanence of rock with the transience of life. The resulting hybrid creations – from the skin, bone, and claws of bear and coyote, deer and cattle that Cisneros salvages as he walks the desert or the forest – are avatars from a mythological world rooted in what he believes to be spiritual geography.
“You must die many times in your life to become yourself,†says Cisneros, who perceives these same rhythms in the self-creation of the individual artist. Engaging directly with his aesthetic concerns – the relation of life and death, the rhythms of rock and stars – Nitoslawska’s 1999 film Sky Bones uses time-lapse photography to capture the cycles of nature, juxtaposing these passages with lingering still shots that express an enduring presence. Her camera creates an elemental sensuality as it moves across water, sky, desert, and fire with a palette weighted by the colours of days and seasons, as bright midday deserts and snow-covered forest give way to deep blue twilight.
Sky Bones examines Cisneros’ relation to his art through his creation of a personal mythology. As he imagines it, the artist’s role as a creator provides a spiritual reconnection with the natural world. “We are losing nature, and ourselves with her,†Cisneros says, “(Yet) how can you get lost if you invent your landscape?†Like his art, the film explores a world that is deeply personal yet rooted in the immeasurable expanses of time and space.
Sky Bones (50 minutes) was shot on 16mm film, and was produced and directed by Marielle Nitoslawska. It appeared in many festivals and was nominated for Best Arts Film at the 1999 Hot Docs International Festival in Toronto.
“You must die many times in your life to become yourself,†says Cisneros, who perceives these same rhythms in the self-creation of the individual artist. Engaging directly with his aesthetic concerns – the relation of life and death, the rhythms of rock and stars – Nitoslawska’s 1999 film Sky Bones uses time-lapse photography to capture the cycles of nature, juxtaposing these passages with lingering still shots that express an enduring presence. Her camera creates an elemental sensuality as it moves across water, sky, desert, and fire with a palette weighted by the colours of days and seasons, as bright midday deserts and snow-covered forest give way to deep blue twilight.
Sky Bones examines Cisneros’ relation to his art through his creation of a personal mythology. As he imagines it, the artist’s role as a creator provides a spiritual reconnection with the natural world. “We are losing nature, and ourselves with her,†Cisneros says, “(Yet) how can you get lost if you invent your landscape?†Like his art, the film explores a world that is deeply personal yet rooted in the immeasurable expanses of time and space.
Sky Bones (50 minutes) was shot on 16mm film, and was produced and directed by Marielle Nitoslawska. It appeared in many festivals and was nominated for Best Arts Film at the 1999 Hot Docs International Festival in Toronto.