A Toronto hip-hop crew gets animated in living, CMYK colour

Francesca Nocera — a.k.a. Sun Sun — animates 88 Days of Fortune for this week's episode of Exhibitionists

Image | Lido Pimienta - 88 Days of Fortune - Sun Sun

Caption: Toronto's Francesca Nocera (a.k.a. Sun Sun) is this week's Exhibitionist in Residence. (Facebook/@88DaysOfFortune)

When you catch this week's Exhibitionists(external link), try to imagine all those animated interstitials lighting up the Art Gallery of Ontario(external link)'s Walker Court.
This week's featured artist, Francesca Nocera(external link) (a.k.a. Sun Sun) originally created the spots as video projections for November's First Thursday(external link) event, a monthly party that turns the museum into Toronto's only nightclub with a Group of Seven collection.

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Nocera is the co-founder of 88 Days of Fortune(external link), and the arts/music collective headlined the event.The group's been throwing parties, producing records and cultivating a futuristic, LGBTQ-friendly hip-hop scene in the city since 2009, as our own Amanda Parris wrote earlier this year. And for the set, Nocera animated a few good people from the crew in living, CMYK colour.
That's Lido Pimienta(external link), Witch Prophet(external link) and Latasha Alcindor(external link) in the clips, shape-shifting and conjuring day-glo magic thanks to a little digital sorcery.
Nocera's a fashion designer(external link), a music producer(external link) and a DJ, but when it comes down to it, she considers herself a visual artist. "I think that was probably one of my first loves, animation," she tells CBC Arts.
After I'd created these short animations, it rekindled an old love. - Francesca Nocera, artist
She first picked it up while in university at Parson's School of Design, and over the years she's run animation workshops at Sketch(external link), a local community organization that offers arts education for youth at risk.
"There's less limits in animation. Your imagination can run far," she says. "Putting the work in and getting a result right away, you can see something come alive. I like that."

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And yet, it hadn't been her focus for years. "There's this artist I really like who inspired me to get back into animation," she explains. That artist would be L.A. illustrator Robin Eisenberg(external link), who's internet-famous (113K Instagram followers(external link) and counting) for her pictures of neon aliens(external link), pop-culture icons(external link) and pizza-loving skater babes(external link).
Eisenberg also happened to provide the album art for Witch Prophet's "Architect of HeartBreak(external link)," a hypnotic neo-soul track featuring THEESatisfaction(external link)'s Stas. Nocera's always been a fan of bright colour, she says, but Eisenberg's iPhone-friendly palette served as the jumping point for this series of moving portraits.
"After I'd created these short animations, it rekindled an old love," Nocera explains. "I'm working on some new animation. I want to make a short film. I'm not sure yet what the story is, but there'll definitely be mostly queer, androgynous, of colour-ish characters in it, because I really need to add that. There's not much of that imagery out there. I want to do something to reflect those ideas and people."

Until then, check out some of her work...

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Find more from Francesca Nocera on her website(external link) and Instagram (@sunsunart503(external link)). Watch Exhibitionists online(external link) or Sunday at 4:30 (5 p.m. NT) on CBC Television.
Want to see your creations on CBC Arts? Just send us an e-mail!(external link) You could be an Exhibitionist in Residence this season.