Video artist to display 50 years of work in Bath

Terry Flaxton developed a particular interest in analogue video during the 1970s

An exhibition by a renowned video artist will feature 50 years worth of moving images.

Terry Flaxton, a visiting professor at University of the West of England, will display 66 works created between 1977 and 2023 at Roseberry Studios, Bath.

Mr Flaxton said: "I decided I must create a narrative for the audience about why I do what I do using the idea of an upward journey."

The exhibition opens to the public on 6 October and runs until 5 November.

Mr Flaxton, who lives in Wells in Somerset and is considered one of the UK's leading video artists, says the exhibition is a retrospective survey of 50 years of continuous practice in the moving image.

The exhibition, 'Terry Flaxton: A Life in Video Art' is structured over four floors at Roseberry Studios.

Mr Flaxton said he took inspiration from the venue's lay-out and decided to create a narrative for the audience using the idea of an upward journey.

Beijing Cowboys from Portraits of the Arrow Tower Beijing will be on display

He said: "'The Human Form' is situated on the ground floor and takes our physical and mental state as a metaphor for our relationship to 'reality'.

"On the first floor 'Landscapes and Installations' provides the audience with a way of interpreting their own response to the work as a way to map ourselves in an unfamiliar way - building on the insights provided previously by looking at the human form - now instead of looking inward to look outward, we're asked to look outward to then look inward.

"The intermediate floor contains my early work from 1977 to 2010 and asks the audience to step back in time and is an attempt to throw my current work into relief.

"The top floor is the summation of my current work and consists of three multi-part collections."

This includes the works: 'Anthropocene' (2021), which creates the surround for Stravinsky's Rite of Spring; 'Immeasurable Heaven: The Laniakean Paradigm' (2022) which reflects on astronomers who have mapped the new world of Laniakea, the largest tract of nearby space ever mapped and 'Entangled: The Human Gaze in an Age of Quantum Entanglement' (2023) which proposes that what we invent is simply an extension of our potential future state.

Day of the Dead Hollywood Cemetery will also be on display

Mr Flaxton has exhibited internationally and been a cinematographer to artists such as Grace Jones, Sting, Queen Latifah, Van Morrison and Madonna, and was a writer and director for the BBC and Channel 4 before moving into academia.