|
There are many examples of all kinds of my moving image works on this site - from art to documentary to drama to music - please explore. This landing page contains general information about my work and in the Dropdown Menus above you'll find:
|
|
|
I'm prompted to speak about where I came from - which was being born as a white male in Hackney Hospital in the East End of London in the early '50's of the 19th century. So much of what I've done is what psychologists call the unwinding of the spring of character. Some argue that at birth you have some primary impactful lessons in life that unwind throughout your years and inform your acts - and it would be true to say that I came out fighting when I woke up to my position in life - poor but with loving parents - or a mother at least as my dad was very often absent... Look at the picture, that's my dad circa 1959 pulling me along seemingly against my will. I love this picture because in a sense I don't exist other than as a trace.... and much of my art is about myself in relation to everything that exists where my self is a small insignificant thing. If you look through my later work you'll see many works of abstraction - and it wouldn't be going too far to say that these are modernist gestures, statements of self, compositions of awareness about being part of a much larger thing that I imagine enfolds us. At the time of my upbringing it was a tough life because I had a propensity for writing poetry, listening to tone poems, (Vaughn Williams Fantasia) looking at clouds, and I and a friend came across Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast early on and my mother insisted in dressing me as a little French boy complete with dark brown beret, shorts, dark brown shoes and a little tan overcoat which she made because she was a top machinist (she tailored men's jackets which is very difficult to do and she always said 'get education, get out' or become a computer programmer or an airline pilot) - so my get up was the perfect target for passing gangs of boys as my father left me outside a pub in Hoxton for an hour every Sunday morning.
When I was 11 I simultaneously knocked a bullies chin in a football game and passed the 11 plus which meant that he and his cronies went to one school and I went to Sir Thomas Parmiter's Voluntary Aided Grammar School for boys in Bethnal Green... After a few years of being introduced to culture and history an art teacher said to a small group of boys 'come visit me on a Saturday morning' - and I took my first trip to Belgravia and it was then that I knew that something was not right: why were some people privileged and some people not? But then there was art - seemingly not a political place. I had a series of visions that started to set me apart - no one else was having these as I discovered that these were replete with universal messages. Then In my twenties I became politicised, I also went back to uni in '76 and made a piece in '78/'79 called Talking Heads (to refer to the News Readers who were indeed talking heads who spoke with society's authoritative voice) ...This won 4th prize in the 1979 Tokyo Video Festival... Early stuff! |
My dad turns to smile whilst I seem to be reluctant to go onward circa 1959
|
|
I've been exhibiting internationally since the mid-seventies. I'm a lifetime Academician at the Royal West of England Academy and a lifetime Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society. My artworks have been exhibited at many festivals worldwide winning prizes in Tokyo, Locarno & Montbeliard, Algiers & Amsterdam festivals, at galleries: Tate Britain, the National Film Theatre, the Institute of Contemporary Art, London as well as galleries around the world. The Harris Museum holds a permanent copy of my homage to the famous photographer titled: "In Re Ansel Adams" - BELOW 90 seconds, 2008
My various installations have exhibited to audiences of over 1.2 million in New York at the Cathedral of St John the Divine five times each in six month runs. I have also been a cinematographer to artists such as Grace Jones, Annie Lennox, Kiri Te Kanawa, Queen Latifa, Van Morrison, Mariah Carey, Harry Belafonte, Sting, Madonna and many others - and been a writer and director for the BBC and Channel 4 before moving into academia where I researched high resolution imaging and became director of 'The Centre for Moving Image Research' at University of the West of England. I was a Professor of Cinematography and obtained a PhD in high resolution disciplines. My earlier documentaries and artworks have been broadcast on BBC, ITV Channel 4, PBS, KQED, KABC, KTTW, RTE, ZDF and Canal+.
Latest Exhibitions 2025
- Spain, Barcelona Contemporary Exhibition – 4TH EDITION 2025 Barcelona | May 10 – 19, 2025 - Italy, Rome International Art Fair 2025 – 14TH EDITION Rome | May 02 - 15, 2025 - UK Farr’s London, Innovation Through Video: Video Art on Channel 4, Echos from the Static, April, May 2025 - Iceland, Listasafn Árnesinga Art Museum, Hveragerði, March/April 2025 - United Kingdom, Glasgow Centre for Contemporary Arts, April - Germany, C.A.R. Media Art Fair, Essen - March 2025 (Directors Lounge Contemporary Art & Media, Berlin) - United Kingdom, Chester International Film Festival March 2025 - United Kingdom, Closeup Cinema, London, March - United Kingdom, Bristol, February, RWA Artists Talk - Sedition International Online Release, Glow, March2025 - United Kingdom, Closeup Cinema, London, February - United Kingdom, Bristol, RWA Open, November, Testing to Destruction (2017 - 2024), Prisoners (1984) September 2024 through to January 2025 - United Kingdom, Closeup Cinema, London, January TO THE RIGHT is an image of a signature work of mine, IN OTHER PEOPLE'S SKINS - an installation named to reveal the essential nature of both the work and the empathy we need to generate to save ourselves. This table installation has been exhibited in 7 cathdrals and Bath Abbey in the UK, in various countries around the world and has exhibited three times at the Cathedral of St John the Divine in New York and two of those periods lasted for six months each time where the visitors were estimated by the Cathedral to be around 1.2 million. The creation of this work is available here: The Making of In Other People's Skins
To the right
- A slow walk around a large exhibition at the P3 Gallery in London from 2010 - a lot of installations in early form were exhibited at this show & this is before the audience arrived - we'd literally just got the whole thing up and running - if you can hold on past the first large space there are more installations in the second space. To the Right: TO STAND AND STARE A SOMERSET LANDSCAPE
Shown in a variety of exhibitions in Los Angeles, Bristol, London and Somerset "To Stand and Stare a Somerset Landscape" is a 70 minute documentary that integrates a variety of art works and seeks to reveal the nature of the Digital by a close up examination of the analogue era through its arts and craftspeople. |
Above: I started working with Sedition Art around 2015 when I got a call and was asked might I want to become a curated artist on that platform. By now, 2024, I'm currently the ninth most collected artist on the platform out of around 2000 artists. Some of whom are very well known. So at this URL you can find around 70 works. Please click the picture above or this link Sedition Art and you'll see the extent of my current phase of work.
There's a collection of mine called "Diamond Beings" where one of the 6 pieces is free. If you take out an account (again free) you can redeem the free piece which is part 5 Diamond Beings forming over the Takamina Desert Then click click ‘Redeem here’ . WORK ON SEDITION ART
WORK ON ARTPOINT WORK ON MAKERSPLACE WORK ON CIFRAH WORK ON NEW YORK FILM CO-OPERATIVE WEBSITE WORK ON NiiO WORK ON LUX ONLINE WORK ON VISUALFIELDS 
In Other People's Skins
|
Malta Catalogue 2022
Ansel Adams' remarkable image of Tunnel View, Yosemite - remade with a Red Cinematographic 4k camera with an Angénieux 24 - 290 mm lens Click the picture to view the work
Click the picture to view the work: In Re Ansel Adams
Click the picture above to see my RPS Fellowship submission
Click the picture to the making of "In Other People's Skins" which exhibited at the Cathedral of St John the Divine in New York to audiences exceeding 1.2 million
The front page of the Xian Daily where "In Other People's Skins" exhibited at the Academy of Arts
Click the picture to see
"Postcards from Beijing"
Portraits of the Arrow Tower Beijing - click the picture
"Van the Man" who I shot several Promos for plus a 19 camera Concert for which I was Technical Director and Lighting Designer
Me grinning like an idiot whilst with Robert Cahen as we were editing one of his works called "Blind Song"
BELOW: an Image from an early 90 minute script called "The Isle of Glass" which was later made under another title - but that's another story...
|
Exhibitions & Online Releases in 2025
- Spain, Barcelona Contemporary Exhibition – 4TH EDITION 2025 Barcelona | May 10 – 19, 2025 - Italy, Rome International Art Fair 2025 – 14TH EDITION Rome | May 02 - 15, 2025 - Iceland, Listasafn Árnesinga Art Museum, Hveragerði, March/April 2025- Iceland, Listasafn Árnesinga Art Museum, Hveragerði, March/April 2025 - Germany C.A.R. Media Art Fair, Essen - March 2025 (Directors Lounge Contemporary Art & Media, Berlin) - United Kingdom, Chester International Film Festival March 2025 - United Kingdom, Closeup Cinema, London, March - United Kingdom, Bristol, February, RWA Artists Talk Sedition International Online Release, Entangled /Travelling Faster than Light: The Human Gaze in an Age of Quantum and Tachyonic Entanglement Part IV, February 2025 - United Kingdom, Closeup Cinema, London, February - United Kingdom, Bristol, RWA Open, November, Testing to Destruction (2017 - 2024), Prisoners (1984) September 2024 through to January 2025 - United Kingdom, Closeup Cinema, London, January Exhibitions & Releases until end 2024 - United Kingdom, Closeup Cinema, London, December - Sedition International Online Release, Entangled /Travelling Faster than Light: The Human Gaze in an Age of Quantum and Tachyonic Entanglement Part IV, November 2024 - United Kingdom, Closeup Cinema, London, November - United Kingdom, Closeup Cinema, London, October - United Kingdom, Bristol, RWA Open, November, Testing to Destruction (2017 - 2024), Prisoners (1984) September 2024 through to January 2025 - CIFRA International Online Release, November, The Mechanism - CIFRA International Online Release, October The Golden Apples of the Sun - United Kingdom, Closeup Cinema, London, September - United Kingdom, The Cube Cinema, Bristol, September - Sedition International Online Release, In Paradiso, August - United Kingdom, Closeup Cinema, London August - United Kingdom, The StoryHouse in Chester, July - Italy Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello, Venice | June 07 - 21, 2024 San Marco Art Space, Venice | June 20 - July 04, 2024 Anima Mundi, Exhibition titled Visions, A Sad and Divine Comedy, June - Italy Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello Venice, Anima Mundi, Exhibition titled Consciousness, Hearts of Oak, May - Sedition International Online Release, Mexico: Landscapes of the Heart, April 2024 - Sedition International Online Release, Un Tempo Una Volta, April 2024 - - Sedition International Online Release, Hearts of Oak, April - Germany, Berlin Paris Recontres, Haus der Kulturen der Welt 9 - 14th April April 2024 - Germany, C.A.R. contemporary art ruhr Photo/Media Art Fair at Zeche Zollverein, March 2024 - Italy Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello Venice, Anima Mundi, Exhibition titled Rituals, Un Tempo Una Volta (Once Upon a Time in Venice) May 10 – 24, 2024 - Germany, Berlin, Director’s Lounge, C.A.R Contemporary Art Ruhr, March 2024 - Germany, Berlin Paris Recontres, Haus der Kulturen der Welt March 2024 Exhibitions in 2023
- France/Germany, November Paris/Berlin Recontres Another Life - UK Bath October 5 weeks Roseberry Studios, Retrospective of work, Various works from 50 years - Sedition International, Online Release, Diamond Beings (5 part collection) - UK Oxford October Various works, Barn Galleries Oxford - UK September Teotihuacán, The Gannon Rooms, Saxmunden - Sedition International, Online Release, September, Gold’s Love is Eternal (5 part collection) - UK August Teotihuacán, Braziers International Film Festival - UK October/December, RWA Bristol God’s Love is Eternal - Australia, Adelaide July, The Art of the Moving Image, Retrospective, July - International Online Release/Italy Visual Container, Diamond Beings Above a Dying Star - Australia, Melbourne Teotihuacán, SceneSound Melbourne, July - Italy Prehistoric, Accademia di belle arti di Napoli, April 18th, Italy - Magmart Festival Exhibitions in 2022 - USA, BlissFest333, Colorado December 17th - 19th 2022, Another Life - Australia, Melbourne, MINA festival November 2022, Another Life - Korea, Seoul Korean Electro-Acoustic Music Society Presence, October - Portugal, Image Play Festival, Funchal, a selection of recent works: Arabesque, Glade, Borderless, Consumed by the Sun, O Great Mother, Barcode Jesus in a World full of Everyday Beeple, Presentiments, November 5th and 6th - Sedition International, Online Release, The Human Gaze in an Age of Quantum Entanglement, (Last 4 parts of 8 parts), November - UK Royal Society of the Arts, London, Another Life, 6th October 2022, London - UK Bristol Royal West of England Academy Open, Premier of new large-scale work: The Human Gaze in an Age of Quantum Entanglement, (8 parts) 30th September - 1st December - Sedition International, Online Release, The Human Gaze in an Age of Quantum Entanglement, (1st 4 parts of 8 parts), October 8th - Visual Container International Online Release, Visual Container TV Release of new work Diamond Beings Forming Above the Surface of A Dying Star from 23 July to 06 September - Italy Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello & Palazzo Bembo, Exhibition titled Visions, Venice, Another Life, September - Australia ILCH Melbourne, Mountain Thunderstorm, International Selection, 9th September - UK Crassh Breaking the Frame Outdoor Festival Cambridge UK, To Stand and Stare: A Somerset Landscape, 30th September - Italy, Fabbrica del Vedere, Cannaregio Venice, 9th September Metamir, Parachronon, Another Life, Portraits of Cannaregio, and a series of other recent moving image art works - Sedition International, Online Release, Another Sun, 9th July - Italy Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello & Palazzo Bembo, Venice, Exhibition titled Visions, For Primo Levi, In Time of War June/July - Malta Valetta Contemporary, Malta, Exhibition titled Meta Landscapes, Another Sun, May/June - Italy Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello & The Room, Venice, Exhibition titled Consciousness, Arabesque, May/June - Australia, Seensound, Melbourne, Presence, Teal House, April/May Screening & International release online - Italy, Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello & The Room, Venice, Exhibition titled Rituals: Carnival of Light, April/May - Italy, Palazzo Bembo & The Room, Venice, Exhibition titled Canvas: Another Sun, March/April - Sedition International, Online Release, Reverie of Forgotten Dreams (La Rêverie des Rêves Oubliés de l’arrière-pays) 9th March - Sedition International, Online Release, Day of the Living Dead 9th March - Iran, Tehran Experimental International Electronic Music and Image Festival, February Exhibitions in 2021 - Japan, Yokohama, Arts Cafe Presence - UK Royal West of England Academy Exhibitions in 2020 - UK Royal West of England Academy - Australia, Melbourne, Seensound - Italy Online Magmart Video Artists United - UK Online Strangleove Festival Exhibitions in 2019 - Turkey Istanbul International Festival - UK Royal West of England Academy Radiant Light - UK Bishops Palace Wells, Intersection of Dreams Exhibitions in 2018 - Slovenia, Ljubliana, Retrospective, SCCA Center for Contemporary Arts - USA Los Angeles, US, Echo Park Film Centre, To Stand and Stare: A Somerset Landscape - UK Royal West of England Academy Exhibitions in 2017 - Netherlands, Romeinse Katakomben Museum - Netherlands, Romeinse Katakomben Museum - Ireland, Dublin, Plastik Festival - USA (Oct 2016 - March 2017) The Cathedral of St John the Divine, NY The Intersection of Dreams (In Re Salvador Dali - Triptych) 2nd Visit - UK Bristol, Royal West of England Academy Exhibitions in 2016 - Italy, Florence, Presidential Palace, Diffrazione - USA, New York, Cathedral of St John the Divine, Triptych - UK, Bristol, Arnolfini, Moving Image Art: CMIR 3 Portraits of Bristol Youth - UK Bristol, Royal West of England Academy - UK Atkinson Gallery Somerset andscape Triptych Westhay, Kings Canyon, Fuertaventura - UK RWA 2016 Bristol Reimagining Venice (Mosaic Triptych) - UK Bristol CMIR: TWO, CentreSpace Bristol Barcode Jesus in a Material World EXHIBITIONS IN 2015 - USA In parallel and opening at the same time, The Cathedral of St John the Divine, New York, Triptych, The Intersection of Dreams (In Re Salvador Dali) 1st Visit - UK In parallel: Bristol Cathedral, The Bristol Triptych: The Intersection of Dreams (In Re Salvador Dali) - UK CMIR:ONE: UWE Arnolfni Portraits of Bristol Youth - UK Strode Cinema, To Stand And Stare: An English Landscape ideas of place and space and the notion of ‘truth’ in documentary early iteration - USA The Cathedral of St John the Divine In Other People’s Skins (2nd visit) New York EXHIBITIONS IN 2014 - UK Bristol Cathedral Reflection on Water (for a visit by the Archbishop of Canterbury) - UK Royal West of England Academy, Bristol Reflection on Water, The Sum of Hands EXHIBITIONS IN 2013 - UK Royal West of England Academy, Bristol Triptych: Portraits or the Youth of Bristol; In Other People’s Skins; Triptych: Portraits of Beijing, New York, Venice; In Re Ansel Adams - UK Harris Museum, Preston (2012 - 2013) In Re Ansel Adams, Accessioned and in the collection to be exhibited at various moments in perpetuity EXHIBITIONS IN 2012 - Italy Milan Triennale, Milan Museum of Design In Other People’s Skins - UK Bristol An English Landscape 70 min, ideas of place and space and the notion of ‘truth’ in documentary (Watershed) - UK Bath High Res Portraiture within low resolution Photoframe display forms Corsham Court, Conference Exploring Transmedia Writing & Digital Creativity, Bath Spa University, July 2012 - UK London Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, Prisoners - UK, Somerset, Black Swan Gallery, Frome, Somerset Portraits of the Working People of Somerset, - UK LUX Online Making News Part of ‘Broadcast Exhibitions EXHIBITIONS IN 2011 - UK Bath Museum of Work Portraits of the Working People of Somerset, August/September - UK South London Gallery, Curated by Lux, Prisoners EXHIBITIONS IN 2010 - USA In Other People's Skins, The Cathedral of St John the Divine, New York, - France, Museum of Modern Art Strasbourg, Retrospective of works - USA New York Center, Millennium Magazine Portraits of CannaregioJ - Japan, Yokohama Creativity City Center, Retrospective of works - UK Glastonbury Abbey, Somerset, 07/10/11-22/01/12 Portraits of the Working People of Somerset - Sweden Vasteras Cathedral In Other People's Skins - UK Walcott Gallery, Bath, In Other People's Skins - China Xi'an Academy of Fine Art In Other People's Skins - UK Retrospective, Salisbury Arts Centre, Research Works from AHRC Fellowship, (including first iteration of Myth and Meaning in the Digital Age ) One Person Show of research works from AHRC Fellowship, Salisbury Arts Center - UK Major Retrospective Time and Resolution: Experiments with High Resolution Imaging, P3 Gallery, London (University of Westminster) Summative Exhibition of 1st AHRC Fellowship P3 Gallery, London (University of Westminster) http://www.visualfields.co.uk/P3exhibition.m4v This was the cumulative exhibition of the AHRC Fellowship and was held in collaboration with University of Westminster. The artefacts and research were highlighted for the Westminster CREAM research group at their Research Away-day. During this exhibition Academics were also approached to discuss issues around the methodology of practice as research EXHIBITIONS IN 2009
- Norway - Bergen Elektronisk Kunst Senter, Screening of Research work, - Italy, Rome Retrospective Rome Film Festival - Italy, Milan InVideo Festival - Italy, Milan Fabricca del Vappore, In Other People's Skins http://www.bestup.it/new/images/stories/home/Comunicato_FDV_inglese.pdf - UK Southwell Minster In Other People's Skins, Southwell Minster - UK The Phoenix Arts Center, Glastonbury, In Other People's Skins - UK Gallery 204, Bristol, Imaginists - work from Venice, - UK The Phoenix Arts Center Glastonbury, 2009. http://www.visualfields.co.uk/imaginiststalking.htm EXHIBITIONS IN 2008 - Malta St James Cavalier Center for the Arts, In Other People's Skins http://www.visualfields.co.uk/indexArt2.htm - UK Phoenix Arts Centre, Glastonbury, The Dinner Party - UK Bristol Gallery 204 - In Re Ansel Adams, Gallery 204, Bristol, 26/09/08-27/09/08 - Italy Venice - Scarabocchio Studio Grafico, Cannaregio, Ponte degli Ormensini, Venice, Un Tempo Una Volta (Once Upon a Time), plus Ritratti di Cannaregio (Portraits of Cannaregio), SeptemberUK Wickham Theatre University of Bristol A series of 4 HD installations over four days, - UK Wickham Theatre University of Bristol A series of 4 HD installations over three days - UK Cathedral Tour of In Other People's Skins including: Worcester, Gloucester, Southwark, Winchester, Wells, Bristol, Bath Abbey For Researchers there's also a small site called Video Art Resources with five Channel 4 Video Art programmes (click) On Video produced by Triple Vision - VIDEO ART RESOURCES is concerned with exploring the histories, theories, technologies, cultures and politics of moving image production, interaction and reception. First up: 6 TV programmes on Video Art from the 1986 row two being 1987, the last being 1989. EXHIBITIONS Between 1978 - 2007 In 1978, the Fashion show, (made in 1977) was exhibited at the Long Beach Museum in California by Kathy Rae Huffman, the then curator of moving image work. Next came the Fourth Tokyo Video Festival where I, Cooper and Dedman's piece (written by myself) Talking Heads, won a prize. From then on my work was shown at many festivals, notably the Worldwide Video Festival in Den Haag, Netherlands, but many, many other places including Moscow, Tokyo, Algiers, San Francisco, Locarno, Montbeliard, Paris, Milan, Rome, Seoul, Amsterdam - and many other places around the world. In 1986 the British Film Institute as well as Channel 4 asked me to Shoot “Out off Order” the 3rd electronically produced and released on 35mm ‘film’ in history (after “Harlow” starring Ginger Rogers, 1965 and 200 Hotels, 1972). Though travelling as a cinematographer and occasionally exhibiting between 1992 and 1998 there was a hiatus in Flaxton's work between Zagorsk (1992 and Skin Deep (1999) Flaxton in fact worked on many artists pieces and brought a high level of lighting to many people's work. Having come across HD in 1990, between 2000 and 2007 Flaxton concentrated on HD as a developing production form and tested cameras for Panasonic and Sony and by 1999 he had shot an HD work in the US which was mastered as a 35mm output at Du Art Labs in New York - and from then on spoke at many seminars including the NFT to speak about the transition form Standard Definition (720 x 576 pixels) to the then low level HD Standards of 1280 x 720, the faux HD of 1440 x 1920 and finally the full 1920 x 1080 standard that we all know today. So in eventually entering academia in 2007 with an AHRC Creative Research Fellowship - where the candidates charge was to discover how technical and creative innovations feed upon each other, I then began a second wave of production as an artist - where, having spent many years on moving camera cranes and dollies - I chose to use HD and the camera itself as a window, a portal onto, not only the world - but importantly on the very thing that looks: the self. By 2015 Sedition Art had arrived and was a perfect fit for what I later called my 'Chamber Works’. I also began producing long form moving image artworks during this period characterised by “Myth and Meaning in the Digital Age” (began in 1992 and finished in 2018) , “To Stand and Stare: A Somerset Landscape” (2011 to 2018) to the left and latterly “Mexico: Landscape of the Heart” (2024). Above: A new release Spring 2024 on Sedition Art: Hearts of Oak
|