Gerald Habarth is an artist and animator currently serving as Associate Professor of Art at West Virginia University where he heads the Digital Art & Animation area in the School of Art and Design. He holds an MFA degree from the University of South Florida and a BFA degree from Parsons School of Design.
His artwork centers on experimental approaches to animation and video, exploring a range of subjects, from personal memories and historical events to reflections on consciousness, perception and mortality. An awareness of a world increasingly unstable and alienating is also a recurring theme. The imagery he works with is likewise varied, ranging from abstract to representational, and moving between hand-made, photographic, and digital processes. These works undergo considerable change and evolution during their making, often ending up in places very different from where they began. At the core of this is a faith in the idea that meaning can emerge out of the process of making, rather than precede it, not unlike how meanings form in the mind, developing over time as a result of complex associations, competing ideas, and unpredictable impulses. The work is at its best when it’s in flux. In this sense he thinks of his art making as a kind of hermeneutical process, one characterized by a constant tension between the impulse to continuously evolve the image, drifting between representation and abstraction, and the need to adequately define and resolve it – a kind of visual thinking and feeling one’s way through the work to find something meaningful that can stand on its own and reckon with the world.
His work has been shown in many national and international venues and festivals including the Tampa Museum of Art, Festival Les Instants Vidéo, Istanbul International Experimental Film Festival, and the Stuttgarter Filmwinter - Festival for Expanded Media. In 2010 he founded the West Virginia Mountaineer Short Film Festival. In 2009 he founded the program Space: Atacama, an adventure art course that takes students to the northern Atacama desert region of Chile to create works that focus on perception and experience through multimedia art.
Recent Screenings & Exhibits
2026
Fisura 2026, International Festival of Experimental Film & Video. Mexico City, Mexico (Upcoming).
7th Istanbul International Experimental Film Festival. Istanbul, Turkey (Upcoming).
Cannes International Film Week. (Online) Cannes, France. (Upcoming).
Cauldron International Film and Video Festival. Salt Lake City, UT. (Upcoming).
Wide Open Experimental Film Festival. Oklahoma City Museum of Art.
Crescent City Film Festival. Loyola University, New Orleans, LA.
Big Muddy Film Festival. Carbondale, IL.
Nosebleeds Film Festival. Sioux Falls, SD.
Brussels Independent Film Festival. Brussels, Belgium.
2025
Diminuto Festival Internacional de Cine Mínimo. México City, Mexico
OH+5 Juried Exhibition, The Dairy Barn Arts Center. Athens, OH. USA
Athens International Digital Film Festival. Athens, Greece.
International Music Film and Video Festival URTIcanti. Bari, Italy.
KinoDrome: International Motion Picture & Screenplay Festival. Cleveland, OH, USA.
MicroActs Artist Film Screenings: Break/Mend. London, United Kingdom.
Ornica Film Festival. Carrara, Italy.
14th Kyiv International Short Film Festival / 60 Films in 60 Minutes. Kyiv, Ukraine.
3rd Annual Music Art Film Craft Fest. Green Bay, WI.
Strangloscope 15: A Boat Between the Eyes. Casa de Cultura Dide Brandão. Itajaí, Brazil.
2024
17 Days Video Series, Group invitational exhibition. Western Michigan U. and Alfred State College.
60 Seconds or Less Video Festival. Chestertown, MD.
Minute Madness Toronto. Toronto, Canada.
Hallucinea Film Festival. 15th Edition.
West Virginia Short Film Collection, WVIFF. Charleston, WV.
2023
Mobile Animation Film Festival. Mobile, AL.
Encuentro para Cinéfagos: XIII Festival de Cine-Arte en la Frontera. San Cristóbal. Venezuela.
Mtn Craft Film Festival. Clarksburg, WV.
KinoDrome: International Motion Picture & Screenplay Festival. Cleveland, Ohio.
2023 Bogotá Experimental Film Festival. Bogota, Columbia.
MicoActs 15, Artist Short Film Screenings. London, UK.
Unspooled Film and Animation Festival. Menomonie, WI.
Vacations in the Subconscious 1924-2023. Alphabet Art Centre Cologne (Online).
Inheritance: The Environmental Festival. Public TV broadcast in N. Ireland and the UK
Ephemerality Juried Exhibition. Strata Gallery. Santa Fe, NM
FECIMU Festival International de Cine y Multimedia. Beunos Aires, Argentina
21ST Asheville Fringe Arts Festival. Grail Moviehouse. Asheville, NC
18TH Athens Animfest (online). Experimental 2 Program
2022
POST Pan: Works by WVU School of Art and Design Faculty. Morgantown, WV
Video Art Projects. Municipal Art Gallery Casa Bianca, Thessaloniki, Greece
2021
Braziers International Film Festival. Oxfordshire, UK
Manifestations. Alphabet Art Center (Online)
GECO 2021 - G Eco Film Festival. (Online)
VAF 2020, Muestra de Video Arte Faenza. Bogota, Columbia
2020
First Friday Film Festival, Kansas, Missouri (Online)
Video Art Miden, Post Quarantine II (Online)
CONNECT 2020 International Video art Festival, Tampa FL
11TH UNCG International Sustainability Short Film Competition, Greensboro, NC
33 Stuttgarter Filmwinter, Stuttgart, Germany
2019
CODEC International Experimental Film and Video Festival. Mexico City, Mexico.
Geofilmfestival. Cittadella, Italy
4th Independent Film Tour MX. Monterrey, Mexico
Experimental Superstars 2019. Novi Sad, Serbia
IX Encuentro Para Cinéfagos. San Cristóbal, Venezuela
Berlin Flash Film Festival. Stuttgart, Germany
Seattle's > Open Screening, Seattle Film Institute. Seattle, WA
Hradby Samoty. Moravany nad Váhom Castle. Moravany nad Váhom, Slovakia
2018
Istanbul International Experimental Film Festival. Istanbul, Turkey
The Golden Record. Athens Institute for Contemporary Art. Athens, GA.
31st Festival Les Instants Vidéo. Marseilles, France
2018 Kinodrome Festival. Cleveland, Ohio
Experimental Film Guanajuato. Plaza Los Ángeles, Guanajuato, Mexico
Retransmisión: 3er Muestra de Cine y Video Independiente. Various cities, Mexico
The South Film and Arts Academy Festival. Rancagua, Chile
Fest Anča International Animation Festival. Žilina, Slovakia
That One Film Festival. Muncie, Indiana