Look at Me
"When we go to sleep we take with us the things of the day, tear them up and recombine them, dreaming by our own light. In doing so we become Creator." The Upanishads
Look At Me is made from hundreds of meticulously spliced together super8 and 8mm film clips making 4 films of 22 minutes each projected together as a split screen of two overlaid projections side by side. The film is accompanied by a recorded soundtrack of four turntables simultaneously playing fragments of recorded music and spoken word. The film depicts the flow of mental imagery and music -as if on the borderlands of sleep - kaleidoscopic, phantasmagoric, both deeply personal and universal. A scene played out in the mind is the result of cutting-up and recombining what has been seen or heard - collaging personal and appropriated collective experiences into a portrait that is both individual and recognisable.
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Project Type:Experimental
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Runtime:22 minutes 36 seconds
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Completion Date:June 4, 2018
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Country of Origin:United Kingdom
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Shooting Format:super8 and 8mm
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Aspect Ratio:16:9
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Film Color:Black & White and Color
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First-time Filmmaker:No
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Student Project:No
Timothy Shepard is an American collage artist working with paper, photo montage, cine film and music. He considers collage a metaphor for memory, perception and consciousness.
Solo shows have been at Grosvenor Street Art Space, London (2013), the National Centre For Atmospheric Research in Boulder Colorado (2012-13), and The Lookout (Caroline Wiseman Modern & Contemporary) (2014) He has also exhibited with: Zeitgeist Arts Projects, Charlie Dutton Gallery, Caroline Wiseman Modern & Contemporary, London Art Fair, 20/21 British Art Fair, Standpoint Gallery and Collyer Bristow Gallery. His works are in private collections in the USA, UK, Japan, France and Germany.
Shepard has created a number of album covers, including Paul Weller 22 Dreams (2008), and Kevin Ayers, The Unfairground (2007), which Shepard also co-produced. He has also filmed and directed a number of music videos including for Kevin Ayers, The Go-Betweens, and Bandante (George Vjestica - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds).
Shepard ran and curated the experimental music label, underground sounds (1996- 2000). underground sounds set about to challenge the recording industry model at the time by releasing sample based music on limited edition vinyl whilst making the label's catalogue freely available as mp3 downloads from the underground sounds website.
Shepard worked as a project based studio assistant for Michael Kidner RA. (1993 – 2007), who beyond the studio was both a mentor and father figure.
Shepard has been a guest tutor at Central St. Martins College of Art and a visiting lecturer at the Royal College of Art.
In 2012 Shepard worked with the enigmatic film maker CS Leigh as an Associate Producer and editor on the feature length documentary A Quiet American Ralph Rucci & Paris.
In 2003 Shepard was invited to be Artist in Residence at the Centre de Sculpture in Montolieu in the Montagne Noir, France. This residency lead to a commission from the French Ministry of Culture in a pilot scheme of inviting artists to interact with historic monuments and buildings. Shepard covered the tower of the 12th Century Church of Saint André in Montolieu with material on which were written the names of populated places around the globe which are in line with the church. The piece was called les yeux dans les yeux (eye to eye).
Between 2008 and 2015 Shepard had a studio in the small hamlet of La Galaube, 10km north of Montolieu up in the Montagne Noir. It was here amidst the extraordinary primordial beauty of a mountain wilderness landscape that Shepard worked on many of his landscape collages as well as innumerable spontaneous landscape interventions created during hikes in the mountain.
Shepard was educated at Eton College and is a graduate of Georgetown University, Washington DC where he double majored in Fine Art (sculpture) and Theology after transferring from Columbia University, NYC.
Shepard lives in Notting Hill, London with his 9 year old daughter, Willow.