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Studied at Bath Academy of art and London College of Printing BA (Hons) Graphic Art. Began working while at high school, firstly at a wood saw mill, then in a carpentry workshop learning to make furniture. Soon after, I started playing around with cameras and film, then experimenting with very early video equipment. 1988 Directed first short film “Ipso Facto Yeah Yeah.” A "Super 8mm expose of graffiti and dance culture parties on the London Subway. Thanks to some good friends and dedicated street painters the film made a splash, although never broadcast in the UK for fear of the film stars being identified by the authorities. Sent the film to Tokyo TV company Space Shower. "It became my first on air work. They helped me a lot by commissioning more work." Began making music videos, paintings and installations in Japan and Europe. 1990 Formed fashion brand Urban Action, later to become UACT. The Anglo / Japanese label concentrated on menswear, designing collections bi-annually for the international market. The label ran for 15 years and gained it’s own following in the UK and Japan. 1991 Winner: Music Week Magazine Best Record Sleeve Design for Soul II Soul’s New Decade album. 1991 INXS World Tour stage design. 1991 Founded Tomato with six others: A studio collective made up of individuals from varied creative backgrounds. "Thanks to a good mix of people, the group has gone on to have a wide success in many of it’s chosen fields". While at Tomato, joined HLA - TV production company, began to direct TV commercials. 1995 Winner D&AD award for BBC promotion films Winner Rose award for Public Road Safety film. Film and advertising work with; Universal Pictures, Warner Bros, 20th Century Fox, BBC, MTV, Space Shower, Levis, Time Warner, JVC, Sony, and etc... 1999 Formed music group “Johnny Conquest” after collaborations on music for films. 2002 Released music album Johnny Conquest - Uptown for the Americas’ followed in 2003 with Everybody’s Happy through Beat inc. records. 2002 Worked as second unit director for US movie City by the Sea (staring Robert De Niro). More TV ads, then... 2004 Barcelona Forum Expo. Central exhibit. Directed film installation dealing with language and human diversity. 1 million attend during 5 month expo. 1995-2005: Art exhibitions with Tomato in Europe and Japan. Bregenz, Munich, London, Manchester, Tokyo, Osaka, Barcelona, Brooklyn. Video “VJ” performances around Europe and Japan. Currently working on a 2 year project in Spain. Part of the 2008 Water Expo, Zaragoza. The project involves film, sculpture and sound. [+/-] more profile.. [+] Japanese profile.. |
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The Pavilion Strolling through the park we saw the new Frank Gehry sculpture/building planted among the trees at the Serpentine. The queue for the opening party was well over a hundred meters long, good news for Frank, bad for the people waiting in line. Anyway, Frank's first building in London. Better late than never, and great that he's around, if only for three months...   Neon in NW1 Walking down the road this evening I saw a red glow covering the front of a house. I found this anonymous sentence waiting for me in the deserted rainy Camden street. Fantastic.   Bag project   A collaboration with Osaka based Bag maker Masterpiece. The first two editions in a series of four are Ribbon and Typewriter.   kohei nawa, Barcelona I visited the Kohei Nawa show at the Joan Miro Foundation in Barcelona last night. It plays like a twisted version of heaven, or comfortable version of hell. Exciting and unsettling. I like the it, challenging, particularly the gun pieces. Below is the first in a series of "cute" objects, (This one, Bambi). Each object is completely encrusted in glass spheres. The effect reminds me of a beautifully diseased coat that distorts it's host.  The firearms are presented as ghosts locked within holographic cages. As you move around them, the guns animate, reminding you of their deadly potential. Stunning...  visiting  Interesting day. The king of Spain visited. He took a look at what we've been doing with our exhibit. Apparently he's happy. That's good. LED screens up and running  Got a signal through the led screens. Here it is. before and now A few of the crew from tomato made a huge painting at the Undeworld Makuhari Messe gig back in November. I filmed the whole thing and have finally found the time to start editing it today. Some good pictures and a bit of sentimentality too. I'll post the finished thing later this week.  Some more work from the Agua expo in Zaragoza, Spain. This is called the Lluvia (yoo-via-hhh). Means waterfall in Spanish. Lighting and programing shows the tubes pulsing to the sound of the water drops that fall into the pool. Good looking!!! Labels: l Tomato - new Web Site  The new Tomato Site has launched at www.tomato.co.uk It's the first web re design in 4 years at the studio so we're all fairly excited by it. Structured to allow the content to expand indefinitely we hope to turn this into the definitive archive / news on 17 years of collective output. Expo Zaragoza - Water for life   Two years after starting this project the exhibition will open on June 14th. Just in the final stages of installation and programming now. The Splash sculpture is up and hanging in its final home, above three huge LED screens that will play out the film "Agua para la Vida". (Just a test signal on the screens at the moment...) It's been a long ride making these things but an enjoyable one. Working with my colleagues at Program Collective has been a very fruitful collaboration and I wish them all well with their future projects. Some more images to follow as each part is completed... Photo Mural!  Made a picture for the maxalot.com site this week. They specialize in art prints for walls. Going online someday soon. I've been doing a lot of digital photography recently, so, great getting back to real film. Tactile, experimental and under exposed. Painting a Splash  At the point of finishing the Splash. Each part of the structure has been sanded down ready for painting. We'll use hydraulic spray guns and iridescent metallic paint.  The first step is a deep black coating followed by the silver finish   After shipping to the location it will take a month to hang all 150 parts.  Torre de Agua; the space where we're displaying the final thing.  Food Night  Would you eat these? A friend, at my studio, read a book about snails. He found out that the ones in the garden are edible. He made a salad and brought me some lunch.     Silver Reed Silverette  I got into making concrete poetry and word puzzles with a typewriter a few years ago. Just bought a new machine. It's feels a bit like painting, but in a very mechanical way. The restriction of the process, the options available and the physical mistakes usually present a surprise.\ Parenthesis wall paper  Water City  A woman embraces water and becomes immersed in it. The interaction between the woman and the water causes a change and the water begins to form itself into a city around her. I shot half of this on high speed cameras and created the rest in CGI at The Mill in London. A selection of images showing the work in progress.     Silver Apples of the Moon I was invited this week to contribute to a new book on images inspired by music. Basically make a picture for the track of your choice. Tricky to choose a piece of music just like that, so I waited for something to come my way by chance. The last minute, a friend gave me a CD compilation of avant-garde "Musique Concréte". The track "Silver Apples of the Moon" stood out. Beautifully weird and weirdly beautiful. (This short sample is particularly extreme, in the full length version there are some really gentle parts too). My image for "Silver Apples". Photo collage of telegraph wires shot in Japan over the last ten years.  |
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