Celia Mercer

• Professor; Chair, Animation Program
• Office: 2412 Melnitz
• E-mail:
• Phone: 310-207-2102

Biography

Artist and filmmaker Celia Mercer animates the unexpected – rubbings of manhole covers, encaustic paintings, children’s paintings on fabric, garden plants, photograms, paint splattered and dripped through stencils, and scrapes & scratches on film stock. These animated films are experimental in nature, sometimes abstract; sometimes figurative; they are also surprisingly accessible – there’s a sense of a common factor between them, something that makes them a bit familiar. There is the combination of a human touch with imagery that the viewer may sense they’ve seen someplace before; presented in an entirely new or unexpected way. These award-winning animated films have been exhibited internationally and competed in major film festivals. After receiving her MFA at UCLA in 1990, Mercer went to work in the interactive industry as an art director and interface designer. In 1996, she returned to UCLA, where she teaches traditional and digital animation, and works as an independent filmmaker today.