Exploring the Intersection of Art, Faith and the Human experience


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Artist in Limbo: Challenges Presented by the World

-By Sophie Swenholt

Raised in Beltsville, Maryland, Marcus Ellison has been captivated by movies since he was young. Now, he’s directing and acting in his own films. His latest short film, Limbo, is on display now in Unburied: The Secrets We Keep at the Gallery at Convergence. We caught up with Marcus to talk about his art, motivation, inspiration, and creative process.

Themes of Marcus’s film include distraction, isolation, self-destruction, and the artist’s struggle with breaking out of a creative stalemate. He tells us that surprisingly, the idea for the film came to him with relative ease. The hard part was mapping everything out and finalizing the details. Despite this difficulty, he successfully created a striking short film that confronts the draining feeling of being unable to produce work.

“It was cathartic,” he tells us. “I wanted to do something that felt true to artists in general. I feel like the main point of art is to make something that reaches out to somebody in some sort of way… whether laughing or crying or finding some sort of peace or closure.”

Limbo Still 2

This strong focus on emotion applies to his audience, but it also applies to his characters. Inspired by European film, Marcus wanted to devote full attention to his character’s emotional turmoil:

“[European filmmakers] spend a lot of time living in moments, which is something that a lot of American filmmakers don’t do very much because we Americans have a very short attention span,” he says with a laugh. “There are some claustrophobic, frustrating moments in Limbo—if we didn’t really sit there and watch him struggle like that, then maybe we wouldn’t fully get what we needed out of the scenes. I wanted to sit there with him.”

As for his personal motivation, Marcus says that his family and friends inspire him the most. “I could name people I admire and look up to in the art world, but for me it’s really more about the people who are close to home. I can admire people from afar, but I don’t personally know them. The people I know impact me on a bigger level.“

Two of Marcus’s closest friends, Ryan Fauntleroy and Matthew Bradley, actually assisted him in filming. His younger brother Samuel Ellison contributed, too. They made it a point to shoot in the early morning and late at night, when the world was the most calm. Making use of natural light, the darkness helped to convey the strong sense of isolation present in the film’s indoor scenes. The dark basement and the bright, colorful, outdoor shots each reinforce the other’s meaning, which can be interpreted as a subtle nod to the narrative arc of the film.

Limbo still 3

“I think it goes along with the whole Unburied theme—truth coming into the light through one’s own journey,” Marcus said.

An invaluable representation of Unburied’s essence, Limbo offers an emotional, nitty-gritty peek into an artist’s hidden turmoil. As an emerging artist himself, Marcus is grateful for Convergence’s efforts to improve the artistic climate of the DC area.

“I’m so grateful to have had this opportunity,” he tells us, lamenting the lack of active art spaces in the DC community.

As Marcus continues to produce meaningful work, he brings more and more to the local art scene. We know that wherever his passions take him, his friends and family will have his back.

 

To view Limbo, visit the Unburied closing reception on July 31st, RSVP here.




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