John Woodman is an artist working with landscape film/video and photography and studied at St.Martin’s School of Art and the Slade School of Art. He worked as a Senior Lecturer in Visual Communication Studies at West Midlands College from 1980-87, Principal Lecturer and Chair of Design at Exeter School of Art and Design/University of Plymouth from 1988-96 and Head of the School of Communication and Media at Cumbria Institute of the Arts from 1996-2006. Woodman established the Centre for Landscape and Environmental Arts Research (CLEAR) and was director of the centre from 2004-08. He is currently an Honorary Research Fellow of the University of Cumbria.
His film and video work has been shown in a variety of venues and film festivals including The London Filmmakers Co-operative the National Film Theatre, The Royal Academy of Arts 2011, the 28th Kasselar International Dokumentarfilm 2011, Stuttgarter Filmwinter, International Festival of Expanded Media 2012 and the ‘Environmental Agency: A Landscape Films Programme’ at the BFI NFT, 2013. Installations of video work have been exhibited at the Frankfurter Kunstverein in March 2013 and Ruskin’s Ponds at the Alchemy Film Festival in 2015 and the Kunstmuseum Reutlingen, 2022. During 2017 film screenings have included; Monologue Film Festival, New York; ONE SHOT Film Festival, Armenia; Edinburgh International Film Festival; Bogota International Film Festival, Columbia; Slow Short Film Festival, UK; Switzerland International Film Festival. In 2018 film screenings have included; LES INATTENDUS, Lyon; NOMADICA, Bologna. During 2019 film screenings have included; ONE SHOT Film Festival, Armenia; Biennale of Art Exhibitions and Film Festival, Kyoto, Japan; 64th Cork Film Festival; Museum of Contemporary Art, Bordeaux; 2021; VASTLAB Experimental Film Festival,LA; ECRA, Experimental Film Festival, Brazil. 2022: Tagore International Film Festival, India
Woodman was one of the founding members of the Undercut Magazine Collective and co-editor and designer from 1981-86. He has worked in collaboration with Jean Matthee on the films NEXT DOOR and DOUBLE DOORS and with Roger Polley on projects, commissions and film installations exhibited in many national and international galleries and also featured on Channel 4. The DVD Landscape Films-John Woodman 1977-82 pub.by LUX,UK
His recent work continues his investigation, through the observation of landscape and natural phenomena, of issues concerning representation, duration and perception. Using a fixed frame and hand held camera the work explores concerns of time-space and light, focusing on visual transformation, change and transience. Working in ‘Real Time‘, particular emphasis is given to the way in which, through time, changes in light, weather and season affect our perception of space and place in film. Consideration of reflexivity and the spectator’s phenomenological experience of viewing and the contemplation of video and film of long continuous duration is an important aspect of his work.
List of publications including the LUX DVD booklet with film notes and essays: https://johnwoodman.net/publications/
