Artist Research

Bill Viola

Bill Viola is an American contemporary artist whose artistic expression depends upon the electronic, sounds, and image technology in New Media.

He was born in 1951, and grew up in Queens, and Westbury, New York. O holiday with his family in the mountains, he nearly drowned in a lake, and experience he describes as "...The most beautiful world I've ever seen in my life", "without fear" and "Peacefulness".

His work focuses on the ideas of fundamental human experiences, such as birth, death, and aspects of consciousness. 

He graduated from Syracuse University with a bachelor in Fine Arts in 1973.

His first job after graduation was as a video technician at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse. 

From 1973 to 1980, he studied performance with composer David Tudor in the new music group Rainforest, which was later called Composed in Electronics. 

From 1974 to 1976, he worked as a technical director for Art/Tapes/22, a pioneering video studio led by Maria Gloria Conti Bicocchi in Florence, Italy. It was here he encountered video artists, Nam June Paik, Bruce naaman, and Vito Acconchi. 

From 1976 to 1983, he was an artist-in-residence at WNET Thirteen television Laboratory in New York.

In 1976 and 1977, he travelled to the Solomon Islands, Java, Indonesia, to record traditional performing arts. 

In 1983, he became an instructor in Advanced Videos at the California Institute of the Arts.

He represented the U.S in the 46th Venice Biennale in 1995, for which he produced a series of works called Buried Secrets. In 1998. Viola became the Getty scholar-in-residence at the Getty Research Institute. In2000, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Throughout his career, he has drawn meaning from his deep interest in mythical traditions, especially Zen Buddhism, Christian Myticism and Islam Sufism.

The Dreamers
2016

'The Dreamers' is my favourite piece by Viola, as it is extremely immersive to be in the room as all the different video's are playing. It was beautifully shot, and was high in colour, which I really liked.