Kara Crombie presents Julian’s Balls, the fifth installment in the Aloof Hills, a darkly comic animation series that focuses on the fictional Van Screwd family and the slaves that live on their civil-war-era plantation. The intentionally anachronistic narrative addresses race and gender issues by referencing the characters, images, and events of the collective American cultural unconscious. The multimedia animation techniques also draw on a myriad of sources, from Christian coloring books and Francis Bacon paintings, to Youtube videos and archival film. Julian’s Balls tells the story of a slave’s revenge as the hoodoo witch Clara devises a plan to put the libertine sexual adventures of Julian Van der Screwd to an end.

Kara Crombie is a video and animation artist who lives and works in Philadelphia, PA. She is a recipient of the Pew Fellowship in the Arts, A MacDowell Colony Fellow and a Fleisher Art Memorial Wind Challenge Artist. Her work has been exhibited and screened at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, and the Philadelphia Art Alliance, Fleisher Ollman, and Pageant Soloveev Gallery. She is currently a member of the artist collective Vox Populi in Philadelphia.