Ian Breakwell
Whatever medium happened to be available at the time, Ian Breakwell deployed it. Painting, drawing, printmaking, photography, film, collage, video, audio-tape, slide, digital imaging and performance: all these and more were called into service, according to the needs of the work in hand. As much a verbal artist as he was a visual one, a large part of Breakwell's creative life was devoted to the diary he kept for more than 40 years, a mere fraction of which has been published. He sought an art of recurring epiphany, to be captured either visually or verbally. A diary entry dated July 8, 1973 gives the flavour: "The 18:30 train from London to Plymouth. In the dining car the fat businessman farts loudly and unexpectedly, and simultaneously by the side of the railway track, a racehorse falls down." Breakwell's work is hallmarked by a particular social voyeurism, mitigated by a distinctive sense of humor—Breakwell once described it as a love for "the morose, the deadpan, the seemingly unfunny stuff that is close to misery, but not quite."
Whatever medium happened to be available at the time, Ian Breakwell deployed it. Painting, drawing, printmaking, photography, film, collage, video, audio-tape, slide, digital imaging and performance: all these and more were called into service, according to the needs of the work in hand. As much a verbal artist as he was a visual one, a large part of Breakwell's creative life was devoted to the diary he kept for more than 40 years, a mere fraction of which has been published. He sought an art of recurring epiphany, to be captured either visually or verbally. A diary entry dated July 8, 1973 gives the flavour: "The 18:30 train from London to Plymouth. In the dining car the fat businessman farts loudly and unexpectedly, and simultaneously by the side of the railway track, a racehorse falls down." Breakwell's work is hallmarked by a particular social voyeurism, mitigated by a distinctive sense of humor—Breakwell once described it as a love for "the morose, the deadpan, the seemingly unfunny stuff that is close to misery, but not quite."
Courtesy of Nick Kimberley via theguardian
