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All quotes are taken from an interview with Bill Viola and the author in Sydney, 9 April 2008
The one thing in life that is certain is death, or death and taxes as the saying goes. On a more sombre note, therefore, as humans we struggle to deal with our own mortality as we live and move towards death. It is these core issues that lie at the centre of the work of the international contemporary video artist Bill Viola. Viola posits that our mortality is ‘the poignancy of being human; we are mortal and our lifespan is finite… We have the knowledge of death. We know there is an end. It is something we just live with and something that we don’t want to think about… All of my work somehow, even the pieces that don’t seem like it, all circulate and dance around death.’
Viola’s work explores the universal experiences of birth, life, love, emotion, sacrifice and death as well as spirituality and transcendence. These fundamental elements of existence experienced by humans, coupled with the fact that the videos are often non-language based, make Viola’s work accessible and appealing worldwide. Viola draws upon the traditions and subject matter of Western art, in particular Medieval and Renaissance devotional painting. His video work is also informed and influenced by his involvement and connection to the spiritual teachings, writings and transcendental philosophy of Tantric Buddhism, Islamic Sufism, Christian mysticism and Zen Buddhism.
Viola has been working in video since the 1970s, developing the potential of the medium and its technology as an art form. He has become famous for certain motifs including his trademark use of water, extremely slow film... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline