“In Gardiner’s paintings we find the same sensation as when walking among mountains – of man’s staggering insignificance, and the consequent sense of liberation at being so small and so transitory an episode in the greater scheme of things.”     

Andrew Lambirth

Jeremy Gardiner is a landscape painter with a deep interest in geology and time. His vision of landscape captures the environmental and industrial processes that shape the surface of the earth. His work has addressed industrial, urban and coastal landscapes, focusing as much on the natural phenomena that have changed them, as the human traces he finds.

Gardiner’s paintings of the coastline derive from his cumulative experience of walking along it, sailing past it and flying over it, studying changes wrought over millennia as well as during his lifetime. Using the medium of painting, Gardiner brings to his work a vital knowledge of contemporary practices, such as digital mapping and imagery, as tools to shape and transform what he sees. In so doing, he invites the viewer to reflect on their own transient relationship with the physical world.

Gardiner studied at Newcastle University (BFA 1975-9) and the Royal College of Art, London (MFA 1980-83), before moving to the United States from 1984 to 1999. He currently lives and works in the city of Bath, England. For nearly four decades he has exhibited internationally, including at the Venice Biennale, the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Chengdu Biennale in China. In London, he is represented by Portland Gallery where he exhibits regularly. Two monographs have been published about his work, Unfolding Landscape (Lund Humphries, 2013) and South by Southwest (Sansom & Co, 2020), which include essays by art historians, curators and critics. His work has been reviewed in The New York Times, The Boston Globe and the Miami Herald, and in numerous British publications, including The Guardian and The Sunday Times.

In 1984 Gardiner was awarded two fellowships. As a Churchill Fellow (June-July 1984) he spent the summer traveling throughout the US. In September, Gardiner moved to Boston as a Harkness Fellow (September 1984-September 1985), where he joined the Visible Language Workshop, a Department of the MIT Media Lab, which pioneered interdisciplinary collaboration between the arts and sciences. A Major Works grant from the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities (April 1985) facilitated the creation of a large-scale outdoor anamorphic sculpture, Panopticon, on the campus of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. In the fall of 1985 Gardiner moved to New York City, where he began a series of paintings for his exhibition at MIT’s Compton Gallery (Spring 1987), which helped him secure a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship (April 1987). In 1986 he was appointed to teach life drawing at Pratt Institute of Art and Design, Brooklyn. In 1988, a year in the small town of Cold Spring provided Gardiner with the opportunity to explore the landscapes of the Hudson River School. He returned to New York in 1989 to recommence painting and teaching.

During a sabbatical year in 1992, Gardiner taught in the RCA’s Printmaking Department and made several trips to the Dorset coast in Southwest England, a county made famous by Thomas Hardy’s novels and where generations of his own family had lived. While there, he began studies for his Ballard Point series of paintings based on the Jurassic Coast, a 95-mile-long stretch of coastline in the Southwest with a rich history of fossils and landforms, now designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In 1993 Gardiner was invited to teach at the New World School of the Arts in Miami, where he met artists Jack Lembeck and Susan Banks and established LANDMIND, an environmental art collective. In 1995 they transformed a vacant lot in Miami into Brittle Star Park, an environmental art park, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Earth Day. For this, Gardiner received a Florida Council of the Arts Fellowship (June 1995). He returned to the UK in the summer of 1995 to continue painting the Jurassic Coast. The Ballard Point series was completed in his Miami studio in the summer of 1998, assisted by a New Forms grant from the Cultural Affairs Council (June 1998).

Returning to the UK with his family in 1999, Gardiner reconnected with the British landscape tradition and his familial and cultural roots, resulting in a series of exhibitions depicting the geology of the Southwest coast. The techniques used to create the paintings mirrored the geological processes he observed and studied: surfaces rubbed and polished, eroded, abraded and cut, stratum by stratum, as cliffs are shaped by the sea. Ballard Point, Gardiner’s first London exhibition after returning to the UK, was held at the Belgrave Gallery (2000), followed by Purbeck Light Years at Poole Centre for the Arts (2003). He exhibited work throughout the UK whilst continuing to show internationally in the USA, Norway, Australia and Japan, as well as at the First Beijing International Exhibition in China in 2004.

In 2010, Gardiner participated in Earthscapes: Geology and Geography, a touring group exhibition organized by Sherborne House Arts, an organization funded by Arts Council England. It took place alongside a series of presentations and discussions with artists and scientists exploring multidisciplinary approaches to landscape, each investigating how it is shaped by geological processes, organic life and human activity. Later that year, Gardiner was awarded a residency by Nottingham University’s Towards Pervasive Media initiative (May 2010-March 2011), funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. Gardiner was Artist in Residence in the Geography department, where he met academics from across the university to discuss their perspectives on the landscape of the Lake District. This research fed into an exhibition at the Wordsworth Centre in Ambleside, which included an interactive map of Wordsworth’s favorite walks projected onto a relief map, alongside paintings of waterfalls.

In 2013, Gardiner’s mid-career retrospective of over 100 paintings and prints, Unfolding Landscape, was held at King’s Place Gallery in London. It was accompanied by a monograph of the same name published by Lund Humphries. In October, Gardiner won first prize in the ING Discerning Eye competition at the Mall Galleries in London for his painting Pendeen Lighthouse, Cornwall.

Between 2014 and 2015 Gardiner visited Cornwall, Devon and Dorset on England’s South coast, producing 36 paintings and 40 watercolours depicting spectacular locations where lighthouses were erected to guide vessels to safety. His exhibition Pillars of Light (2016) was shown at The Nine British Art in London. A documentary film by Veronica Falcao following the painter’s journey won the Fine Arts Documentary prize at the Fine Arts Film Festival of Santa Barbara and was a Finalist in the BLOW-UP Chicago Arthouse Film Festival in 2016.

In 2020, Gardiner completed a five-year painting expedition along the South coast of England, inspired by engravings made by the British artist William Daniell for Voyage Around the Coast of England, between 1813 and 1823. This culminated in Gardiner’s touring exhibition South by Southwest, a series of 72 paintings and 60 watercolors, accompanied by a monograph of the same name, looking afresh at the harbours, bays, coves, castles and follies that characterize the area’s remarkable shoreline

In 2021, Gardiner’s work was selected for the Chengdu Biennale Superfusion. His ongoing desire to build new audiences for his work prompted him to apply to the British Council for a UK-China Connections through Culture grant, which he was awarded in March 2022. Gardiner is currently collaborating with the curators Chunchen Wang of the Central Academy of Fine Art (CAFA) in Beijing and Zhongshu Zhang of the Now Gallery for an exhibition of recent work at the Shanxi Contemporary Art Museum from July – September 2024. His exhibition Turning the Tide will be at the Sherborne in Dorset from 20th July – 13th October 2024.

For the past five years, Gardiner has been creating Strata, a series of 100 vertical paintings of the Jurassic Coast, 80 on handmade cotton rag paper and 20 on large-scale poplar panel. Each year he re-visits twenty sites, observing changes in the landscape, painting at different times of day, in different seasons and in varying weather conditions. The paintings explore his long-standing interest in deep time, geology, and how landscape is shaped by the forces of nature.

2024 | Harbours and Havens, Portland Gallery, London, UK; Turning the Tide, The Sherborne, Dorset, UK; Jeremy Gardiner, Shanxi Contemporary Art Museum, China

2022 | Contraband, Candida Stevens Gallery, Chichester, UK

2020 | South by Southwest (touring exhibition), St Barbe Museum and Art Gallery, Lymington, UK; The Nine British Art, London, UK

2019 | Tintagel to Lulworth, The Nine British Art, London, UK

2018 | Geology of Landscape, Candida Stevens Gallery, Chichester, UK

2017 | Drawn to the Coast, The Nine British Art, London, UK

2016 | Pillars of Light, The Nine British Art, London, UK

2015 | Jurassic Coast, Victoria Art Gallery, Bath, UK

2014 | Jeremy Gardiner, ING, City of London, UK 

2013 | Intaglio Monoprints, Pratt Gallery, Pratt Institute of Art and Design, Brooklyn, USA; Cornish Monoprints, Belgrave Gallery, St Ives, UK; Exploring the Elemental, The Nine British Art, London, UK; Unfolding Landscape (touring exhibition), Kings Place Gallery, London, UK; University of Northumbria Art Gallery, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK; Monoprints, Level 39, 1 Canada Water, London, UK

2010 | A Panoramic View, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, UK; Light Years, Jurassic Coast, Poole Centre for the Arts, Poole, Dorset, UK; Atlantic Edge, Belgrave Gallery, St Ives, UK; Along the Dorset Coast, Campden Gallery, Chipping Campden, UK

2008 | The Coast Revisited, The Nine British Art, London, UK

2007 | Arvor, Belgrave Gallery, St Ives, UK; Paintings and Monoprints, Atrium Gallery, Bournemouth University, Bournemouth, Dorset, UK; Jeremy Gardiner, Foss Fine Art, London, UK; Along the Coast, Campden Gallery, Chipping Campden, UK

2006 | Jeremy Gardiner, 59th Aldeburgh Festival, Foss Fine Art, Aldeburgh, Suffolk, UK; Jurassic Coast, Black Swan Arts, Frome, Somerset, UK

2004 | Archipelago, Gallery 286, London, UK; Jeremy Gardiner, Northcote Gallery, London, UK; Jeremy Gardiner, Maltby Gallery, Winchester, UK

2003 | Purbeck Light Years, Poole Centre for the Arts, Poole, Dorset, UK

2001 | Jeremy Gardiner, Maltby Gallery, Winchester, UK

2000 | Ballard Point, Belgrave Gallery, London, UK

1991 | Jeremy Gardiner, Fine Arts Museum of Long Island, Long Island, USA

1989 | Jeremy Gardiner, Centro Cultural Cândido Mendes, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Jeremy Gardiner, Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, Brazil

1987 | Telegenics, Compton Gallery, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

1985 | Heuristic Journeys, George Sherman Gallery, Boston University, Boston, USA; Jeremy Gardiner, Artworks Gallery, London, UK

1984 | Heuristic Journeys, Galerie 39, London, UK

1983 | Digital Totems, General Electric, Hirst Research Centre, London, UK

1980 | Jeremy Gardiner, Parnham House, Beaminster, Dorset, UK

 

 

2024 | Dorset Pavilion, 60th Venice Biennale, Italy; Artists in Purbeck, Russell Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, Bournemouth, UK

2023 | ING Discerning Eye 25th Anniversary Prizewinners Exhibition, ING, London, UK; Winter Exhibition, Candida Stevens Gallery, Chichester; Twenty @ Twenty, Campden Gallery, Chipping Campden; Modern British and Contemporary, The Nine British Art, London, UK

2022 | Sussex Landscape: Chalk, Wood and Water, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, UK; Water & Ways, Candida Stevens Gallery, Chichester, UK; A Murmuration, Candid Gallery, London, UK

2021 | Superfusion, Chengdu Biennale, Chengdu, China; Concrete Castles (touring exhibition), Cornwall Regimental Museum, Bodmin; National Trust Coleshill Estate, Swindon; Chepstow Museum, Chepstow, Wales; Royal Engineers Museum, Gillingham, UK; Unsettling Landscapes, St Barbe Museum, Lymington, UK; Selected Work, Linley, London, UK; Art on a Postcard, Hepatitis C Trust, London, UK

2019 | Twenty Stations of the Dorset Coast, Sladers Yard, Bridport, Dorset, UK; Three x Nine, The Nine British Art, London, UK; Drawn to Dorset (touring exhibition), Fine Foundation Gallery, Swanage, Dorset, UK; Glebe Gallery, Shaftesbury, Dorset, UK; Sunday Times Watercolour Competition (touring exhibition), Mall Galleries, London, UK; Sussex Landscapes, Candida Stevens Gallery, Chichester, Sussex, UK

2018 | Coast, St Barbe Museum, Lymington, UK; RCA Secret, Royal College of Art, London, UK; Impressions on Paper, David Simon Gallery, Bath, UK; Present Day, Candida Stevens Gallery, Chichester, UK

2017 | Capture the Castle, Southampton City Art Gallery, Southampton, UK; Coastal Connections, The Otter Gallery, University of Chichester, Chichester, UK; RCA Secret, Royal College of Art, London, UK

2016 | Facing History, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK; Digital Futures, British Computer Society, London, UK; RCA Secret, Royal College of Art, London, UK

2015 | Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK; Nature, Politics and Science, DLI Museum, Durham, UK; Shorelines Artists on the South Coast, St Barbe Museum, Lymington, UK; The Discerning Eye, Mall Galleries, London, UK

2014 | The Newcastle Connection, University of Northumbria Art Gallery, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK; Songs of Nature, Foss Fine Art, London, UK; Ways of Looking, Aldeburgh Gallery, Aldeburgh, Suffolk, UK

2013 | The Discerning Eye, Mall Galleries, London, UK; Mapping the Way, Walford Mill Crafts, Wimborne, Dorset, UK; Pave the Way, Intaglio Monoprints, Haysom Quarry, Langton Matravers, Dorset, UK; Summer Show, Belgrave Gallery, St Ives, UK

2012 | Painting the Sea, The Art Stable, Blandford, Dorset, UK; Coast Unearthed, Bridport Arts Centre, Bridport, Dorset, UK

2010 | Earthscapes, Geology and Geography (touring exhibition), Bridport Arts Centre, Bridport, Dorset; Thelma Hulbert Gallery, Honiton, Devon, UK; 105th Annual exhibition, Bath Society of Artists, Victoria Art Gallery, Bath, UK; Works on Paper, Campden Gallery, Chipping Campden, UK; 3D 2D, Edinburgh Printmakers, Edinburgh, UK; Belgrave Gallery, St Ives, UK

2009 | Imaginalis, Chelsea Art Museum, New York, USA; Mapping the Coast, Dorset County Museum, Dorchester, Dorset, UK; 157th Autumn Exhibition, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, UK

2008 | Landscapes (touring exhibition), Salon de Yutaka, Kanazawa, Japan; Japan Art de Art, Osaka, Japan; Artzone, Kyoto, Japan; Orie Gallery, Tokyo, Japan; Gallery Mai, Tokyo, Japan; Gallery Atos, Okinawa, Japan; Acostage Gallery, Takamatsu, Japan; Summer Show, 61st Aldeburgh Festival, Foss Fine Art, Aldeburgh, Suffolk, UK; Streaming Museums, Federal Plaza, Melbourne, Australia; Art Loan Collection, Bournemouth University

2007 | Group Show, Modern British Artists, London, UK; A Postcard from St Ives, Belgrave Gallery, St Ives, UK; Cornish Show, Thompson’s Gallery, London, UK

2006 | Summer Show, 59th Aldeburgh Festival, Aldeburgh, Suffolk, UK; Art Loan Collection, Bournemouth University, Bournemouth, Dorset, UK; Ancient landscapes, Midtsommerfest, Tysvaer, Norway; Time Passes, Renscombe Farm, Worth Matravers, Dorset, UK; Originals, Mall Galleries, London, UK

2005 | Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK; Art Loan Collection, Winchester University, Winchester, UK; Petro-Canada Arts Project, No.1 London Bridge, London, UK

2004 | New Media Arts, First Beijing International Exhibition, China; Works on Paper, Sears Peyton Gallery, New York, USA; Hunting Art Prize, Royal College of Art, London, UK

2003 | The Contemporary Landscape, Campden Gallery, Chipping Campden, UK; Peterborough Art Prize, Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery, Peterborough, UK; Site Soundings + Digital Terrains, Deluxe Gallery, London, UK; The Land, Dorset County Hospital, Dorchester, Dorset, UK

2002 | Laing Landscape Competition, Mall Galleries, London, UK; Quiet Waters, Poole Study Gallery, Poole, Dorset, UK; A Pelican in the Wilderness, Holburne Museum of Art, Bath, UK; International Symposium on Electronic Art, Nagoya Port Building, Nagoya, Japan

2001 | Jeremy Gardiner/Geoffrey Dashwood, Maltby Gallery, Winchester, UK; Laing Landscape Competition, Mall Galleries, London, UK; Art Loan Collection, Bournemouth University, Bournemouth, Dorset, UK; Belgrave Gallery, London, UK; The Discerning Eye, Mall Galleries, London, UK

2000 | Group Show, Neuhoff Gallery, New York, USA

1999 | Prints, Novosibirsk State Museum of Local History, Siberia, Russia; Gallery Artists, Belloc Lowndes Fine Art, Chicago, USA; Gamut, Colville Place Gallery, London, UK; 147th Autumn Exhibition, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, UK

1998 | Landmark, Atrium Gallery, Bournemouth University, Bournemouth, Dorset, UK; Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK

1997 | Isle of Purbeck, Silicon Gallery, Philadelphia, USA

1996 | Digital Salon, Visual Arts Museum, School of Visual Arts, New York, USA; Multimedia Artworks, University of Ghent, Ghent, Belgium

1995 | ArCade Prints, Brighton University, Brighton, UK

1994 | Four Englishmen and an Irishman, Joel Kessler Gallery, Miami, USA

1991 | Virtual Memories, Friends of Photography, San Francisco, USA

1989 | Print 89, Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol, UK; Fictive Strategies, Squibb Gallery, New York, USA

1988 | Emerging Visions in Art, Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York, USA; Summer in the City, Twining Gallery, New York, USA; A Kiss is just a Kiss, Twining Gallery, New York, USA; Art and Computers, Cleveland Gallery, Middlesborough, UK; Prix Ars Electronica, Upper Austrian Regional Studios, Linz, Austria

1987 | Emerging Expressions, Bronx Museum, New York, USA; Group Show, Casas Toledo Oosterom, New York, USA; High Tech/High Touch in Printmaking, Pratt Institute Gallery, Brooklyn, New York, USA

1986 | 42nd Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy; Tradition & Innovation in Printmaking (touring exhibition), Milton Keynes Gallery, Milton Keynes; Ferens Art Gallery, Hull; Andrew Grant Gallery, Edinburgh; Barbican Centre, London; Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth, UK; The Computer as an Art Tool, Hurlbutt Gallery, Greenwich, Connecticut, USA; The Artist and the Computer III, Louisville Art Gallery, Kentucky, USA; Artists in the Computer Age, Owens-Illinois Art Centre, Toledo, Ohio, USA

1985 | State of the Art, Twining Gallery, New York, USA; Major Works, New England Arts Biennial, University of Amherst, Massachusetts, USA; Emerging Expressions, Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York, USA; Self Portraits, The Photographers Gallery, London, UK; Digicon, Burnaby Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada; Arts Festival, University of Nova Scotia, Nova Scotia, Canada

1983 | Electra 83, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France; The Pick of New Graduate Art, Christies, London, UK

1982 | New Contemporaries, ICA, London, UK; Pictures for Schools Exhibition, National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, UK; Picture Loan Scheme, Ceolfrith Arts Centre, Sunderland, UK

1981 | Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK; Metropolis, Royal Festival Hall, London, UK; Unicorn Trust Auction, Morley Gallery, London, UK

1980 | Artist in Industry (touring exhibition), The Cooper Gallery, Barnsley, Sheffield City Art Gallery, Sheffield; Doncaster Museum and Art Gallery, Doncaster, Crescent Art Gallery, Scarborough, UK; Drawing into Painting, LYC Museum and Art Gallery, Cumbria, UK; Reliefs, Royal College of Art, London, UK

1978 | The Northern Art Exhibition, Shipley Art Gallery, Gateshead, UK, Student Drawing, Park Square Gallery, Leeds, UK

 

Barclays Wealth Management, Poole, Dorset, UK

BNP Paribas, London, UK

Bournemouth University Art Collection, Bournemouth, Dorset, UK

Centrebridge, London, UK

Cleary Gottlieb, London, UK

Davis Polk & Wardwell, Paris, France

Dorset Museum, Dorchester, Dorset, UK

Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi, Milan, Italy

GDF Suez, London, UK

General Electric, London, UK

GlaxoSmithKline, London, UK

Goodwin Proctor, London, UK

Government Art Collection, London, UK

Greenlight Capital, London, UK

Hatton Gallery, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK

Imperial College Art Collection, London, UK

ING, London, UK

Lawrence Graham LLP, London, UK

LGV, London, UK

NYNEX Corporate Collection, New York, USA

Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, Sussex, UK

Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, UK

Peter Taylor and Associates, London, UK

Pinsent Masons, London, UK

Rathbones, London, UK

Rank Xerox, London, UK

Royal College of Art Collection, London, UK

Royal National Lifeboat Institution, Poole, Dorset, UK

Smartarch, Bath, UK

Southampton City Art Gallery, Southampton, Hants, UK

St Barbe Museum and Art Gallery, Lymington, Hants, UK

St Thomas’ Hospital Collection, London, UK

Swindon Museum and Art Gallery, Swindon, Wiltshire, UK

T. Rowe Price, UK

Tudor Capital, London, UK

University of Northumbria, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK

Victoria Art Gallery, Bath, Somerset, UK

Watson Wyatt, London, UK

 

 

 

2022 | British Council UK-China Connections through Culture Grant

2020 | Arts Council England Grant

2017 | Senior Fellowship, Advance HE

2013 | First Prize, ING Discerning Eye

2010 | Arts Council England Grants for the Arts; Artist in Residence Nottingham University, Towards Pervasive Media, Engineering and Physical Research Council (EPSRC)

2009 | RiTE grant, Higher Education Funding Council for England

2008 | Arts Council England Research and Development Award

2007 | Arts and Humanities Research Council Grant

2003 | Peterborough Art Prize

2002 | National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts Grant

1998 | New Forms Grant, Cultural Affairs Council, Florida

1995 | Florida Council on the Arts Fellowship

1988 | Prix Ars Prize, Austria

1987 | New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship

1985 | Major Works Grant, Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities

1984 | Harkness Fellowship; Churchill Fellowship

1981 | John Minton Scholarship, Royal College of Art

1979 | Yorkshire Arts, Artist in Industry Fellowship

1978 | Midland Bank Drawing Prize; Hatton Scholarship, Newcastle University

1977 | John Christie Scholarship; Newcastle University Northern Arts Exhibition Award

Angulo, Sandie, ‘Grants Reward the Creative Struggle’, Miami Herald, 17 August 1995

Authers, Kate, ‘Bath Lives’, Bath Life, 23 January 2015

Baker, Robin, Designing the Future, Thames & Hudson, 1993

Biggane, Dan, ‘Inspiration millions of years in the making’, The Bath Chronicle, 15 January 2015

Buckman, David, Artists in Britain since 1945, Sansom and Company, 2006

Brompton, Sally, ‘Young Masters’, Daily Mail, 13 October 1975

Burt, Iain, ‘The Isle of Purbeck, A Very Surreal and Romantic Visit’, CTI Magazine, 1998

Clarke, Dr Gill, ‘Artists in Purbeck: Spirit of Place’, Dorset Magazine, November 2024

Collins, Ian, ‘Jurassic Portrait’, Dorset Magazine, June 2013

Darwent, Charles, exh. cat. essay, ‘Jeremy Gardiner: Atlantic Edge, From St Agnes to the Lizard’, Atlantic Edge, Belgrave Gallery, St Ives, 2010

Doyle, Jessica, ‘Diary: Jeremy Gardiner, Jurassic Coast’, House & Garden, February 2015

East, Ben, ‘Prelude to a Storm, Lynmouth Foreland Lighthouse’, Devon Life, November 2016

East, Ben, ‘Gaze, Pendeen Lighthouse’, Cornwall Life, November 2016

Elliot, Tom, ‘Jeremy Gardiner’, Blitz, July 1986

Finch, Liz, ‘Heuristic Journeys, from Picasso to Rasta’, Ritz, May 1984

Franklyn, Charles, ‘Pillars of Light, Coastal Lighthouses of the South West’, The Association of Lighthouse Keepers magazine, Winter 2016

Gardiner, Ginnie, ‘Summer in the City’, Artspeak, June 1988

Garlake, Margaret, exh. cat. essay, ‘Jeremy Gardiner: The Ballard Point Paintings’, Ballard Point, Belgrave Gallery, London, 2000

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Hansford, Christopher, ‘Inspired by a Jurassic Landscape,’ Bath Chronicle, 13 January 2006

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Hodge, Susie, ‘Layers of Time and Meaning’, The Artist, November 2018

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Kerlow, Isaac, exh. cat. essay, ‘Time Passes, Listen, Time Passes’, Purbeck Light Years, Lighthouse, Poole Centre for the Arts, Poole, 2003

Lucy, Sue, ‘Taking the Long View’, The Bath Magazine, January 2015

Mannheimer, Marc, ‘Jeremy Gardiner’, Art New England, December 1987

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McCready, Georgette, ‘Taking the Long View’, The Bath Magazine, January 2015

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Miles, Jeremy, ‘The Constant Gardiner’, Daily Echo, 13 March 2007

Miles, Jeremy, ‘Lighting up Lighthouse’, Daily Echo, 4 October 2003

Miles, Jeremy, ‘Celebrating Art in Dorset’, Daily Echo, 15 May 1998

Olding, Simon, Quiet Waters, Colville Publishing, 2002

Packer, William, exh. cat. essay, Along the Dorset Coast, Campden Gallery, Chipping Campden, 2007

Pill, Steve, ‘Mapping the Coast’, Artists and Illustrators, February 2015

Powell, Anna, ‘Arts and Culture’, Bridport Times, June 2019

Purdon, James, ‘Jeremy Gardiner: Jurassic Coast at the Victoria Art Gallery’, Apollo, 5 February 2015

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Raynor, Vivien, ‘Bronx Museum of the Arts’, New York Times, 25 October 1987

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Watson-Smyth, Kate, ‘Open to Visitors’, Independent, 6 September 1999

Wilkes, James, exh. cat. essay, ‘Paintings and Monoprints’, Jeremy Gardiner: Remaking the Present, Representing the Past, Atrium Gallery, Bournemouth University, 2007

Wise, Kelly, ‘Jeremy Gardiner’, Boston Globe, 6 June 1987

Woodward, Christopher, exh. cat. essay, ‘The Ruins of Corfe Castle’, Purbeck Light Years, Lighthouse, Poole Centre for the Arts, 6 September–15 November 2003

Worden, Suzette, ‘The Earth Sciences and Creative Practice: Entering the Anthropocene’, in Handbook of Research on Digital Media and Creative Technologies, ed. by H. Dew, Hershey, Pennsylvania, IGI Global, 2015, pages 110–140

 

 

Jeremy Gardiner Professor Emeritus Vasari Research Centre, Birkbeck

Reflective Account of Academic Practice

Following studies at the University of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne and the Royal College of Art, I taught for 14 years in the United States.  This was formative for my approach as a teacher.  A Churchill Fellowship in 1984, facilitated my research in art education.  As a fellow I visited Universities and Colleges in the United States and Canada and prepared a report called ‘Computer Graphics applications for Art and Design education’.  In 1984 a Harkness Fellowship, enabled me to move to Boston to work at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as a research fellow.

In 1986, in New York City I taught as an adjunct faculty member at the renowned Pratt Institute of Art and Design and the equally prestigious School of Visual Arts (SVA), taking up a full time teaching post at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn in 1989.  In 1992 I took a sabbatical to be ‘Tutor in Computing for Printmaking’ at the Royal College of Art.  From 1993 – 1998 I was Director of CyberArts at the New World School of the Arts, University of Florida in Miami.

From 1999 -0 2007 I was Professor of Digital Art at the London College of Music and Media at the University of East London, where I built, developed, co-ordinated and led the Postgraduate programme in Computer Arts.  I held the post of Senior Research Fellow at Birkbeck from 2007 – 2010 and was employed as Director of the Department of Postgraduate Studies at Ravensbourne from 2010 – 2019 ensuring that postgraduate teaching includes the facilitation of a multi-disciplinary teaching and learning environment. In 2017 I became a Senior Fellow of AdvanceHE.  Since 2019 I have been Professor Emeritus, Vasari Research Centre, Birkbeck.

Areas of research, scholarship and/or professional practice 

Since the late 1930s Pratt Institute had its own version of the Bauhaus Vorlehre (pre-apprenticeship).  Under the leadership of the Mexican artist, Isaac Kerlow, I helped introduce new technologies and time-based media into the traditional curriculum.  I worked on how best to convey an understanding of the nature of this constantly developing genre of Digital Arts in the context of its relationship with traditional design practice. 

My research as a digital artist is focused on my long term interest in genius loci, an exploration of particular landscapes their contours and unique history.  I use a mixture of both traditional and contemporary, hybrid techniques that combine characteristics of painting, drawing, computer animation, satellite data, immersive virtual reality and additive and subtractive fabrication in the production of my work. 

In 2011, I co-chaired a panel ‘Digital Craftsmanship: How Artists Are Making Physical Objects from Virtual Data’ at the College Art Association in New York City, which was attended by over 200 delegates.  The panel looked at the ways in which artists employ digital design methods and fabrication processes, ranging from 3D laser scanning to rapid prototyping, to create their work. It surveyed research that encompassed the scientific examination of materials, the development of solid free-form fabrication, the cross-fertilization of old and new technologies, and the exploration of the possibilities of new forms. The panelists were from a variety of creative, curatorial, and art historical disciplines who were examining the relevant technological, cultural, and aesthetic perspectives and the variety of practices and technologies being used today. The questions we asked included: How do these new artifacts integrate into our cultural history and heritage? What will be their influence on the future of artistic practice?  These conferences ensured I maintained my working relationships with top industry designers, post production houses and other leading-edge users of rapid prototyping, so my knowledge of digital art and design is always kept up to date.

In 2013 I took part in the Maschein Leadership programme in London and Lincoln.  A monograph ‘The Art of Jeremy Gardiner: Unfolding Landscape’ was published by Lund Humphries.  I also attended SIGGRAPH Asia in Hong Kong and gave guest lectures at Shenzhen and Guangzhou Universities in China. In 2015 the Victoria Art Gallery in Bath hosted an exhibition of my research about the Jurassic Coast.  I also enrolled in the ‘Voice of Influence’ course at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) In 2016 I contributed to Electronic visualization in the Arts (EVA) conference at the British Computer Society (BCS). 

Involvement in teaching and learning initiatives

Having written my report for the Churchill fellowship in 1984 ‘It was clear that the computer itself was nothing of particular interest but it did matter what students made of it’.  I realised students could turn the computer into anything they wanted if they had courage and imagination.  Due to its interactivity, students needed to learn new ways of thinking and behaving and not merely a set of skills for operating a device.  The most important and the most difficult aspect of learning how to compute art and design at this time was learning how to make a meaningful relationship or at least an intelligent dialogue with a machine’.  

Making full use of research and teaching opportunities, while working at the Visible Language Workshop, I disseminated the values of the ‘Pop’ artist and teacher Richard Hamilton, identifying course components such as the exploration of  point, line, plane, proportion, and colour.  Reflecting on my teaching, I realised these exploratory exercises had to be continually and intelligently renewed lest the course become stale and formulaic and projects should be adapted to particular contexts.  At MIT in the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) we were influenced by the Bauhaus and international Constructivists, whose utopian aspirations included a rapprochement between art and science.  Working with an ‘elective’ group of (mainly science) students at the CAVS, I supervised the creation of a giant vector line drawing, using stakes and discarded reels of magnetic tape.  This was inspired by Nazca line drawings from Peru. The MIT weekly newspaper pointed out, it required a ‘God’s eye view’ to see it properly. The science majors experienced making line drawings on a large scale, plotting the drawings out at ground level, where they could be read from above.

My role at Pratt from 1986 – 93 involved designing and implementing new modules in digital art and design, allowing students to specialise in different fields including colour electronic pre-press and multimedia.  By linking traditional art and design concepts with emerging technologies like multimedia they took advantage of multimedia’s multi-sensory capabilities and its ability to reconfigure patterns of information and use it as a new learning medium.  Multimedia could present traditional training material in a much richer and more interesting way than earlier attempts at educational technology.  My success at helping my students link art and design with new technologies was borne out by the fact that many went on to reach the top of their professions in just a few short years.  In the United States alone they began working for companies like Softimage, Industrial Light and Magic and Disney.  I had taught them transferable skills and how to interact creatively with technology. 

In my work as Director of Cyber Arts at the New World School of the Arts, University of Florida, I developed a flexible and efficient studio environment between 1993-98.  At the New World School of the Arts I found appropriate ways to explore creative applications of digital media for the disciplines of Dance, Theatre, Music and Visual Arts.

As a practicing artist and educator I brought the highest standards of professionalism to my teaching practice, using visual arts in digital and traditional media.  I found common denominators between the landscape open to the artist and the scientist.  This was central to my pedagogy, an approach informed by modernist precedents e.g. the Bauhaus. Working within international organisations at the forefront of interdisciplinary experiments has ensured my insights were gained through investigative practice rather than solely through theory. I taught students to reflect on their own practice in relation to a broader postmodern post-media context. I have had a formative impact on digital media pedagogy in the UK. 

At the London College of Music and Media (originally Ealing College of Art) I provided a versatile facility to catalyse innovative artistic use of digital and electronic tools to facilitate the development of a philosophical and critical context necessary for such artistic practice.  Computers and related technologies have their own character that gives their integration into art and design practice a specific direction.  Students are faced with a medium that at a fundamental level imposes few limitations.  The creative act has less to do with pushing the boundaries of the medium than with constraining it. 

From 2010 at Ravensbourne I designed learning and teaching cross-disciplinary initiatives, lecture and seminar programmes, with subject specific units.  These included occasional lectures (e.g. project briefings) essentially organised around group tutorials.  All staff were responsive to emerging technology and to the development of student projects. 

As Director of the Department of Postgraduate Studies, I developed radically different courses by focusing on the creative potential of computing through courses like Wearable Futures, 3D Stereoscopy, Visual Effects and Interactive Product Futures. By designing courses to prepare students for professional positions in Computer Animation, Fashion and Rapid Prototyping, we successfully catered to the needs of a diverse group of students. I prepared students for a changing workplace where computers are used in the creation and transmission of visual messages.  I took account of the level of computer literacy of incoming students in the shaping of the new curriculum.  They were encouraged to criticise, evaluate and present their work to a professional level. 

This solidity and quality of service comes from familiarising students with the fundamental concepts of computing and providing them with a philosophy and rationale to build on that knowledge.  I encouraged students to take a philosophical overview of their work with computers.  I asked them to consider the nature of the ‘digital’ and to reflect on the relationship between mass media and society.  I asked them to think about the ‘computer designer’ as a creative individual who must engage both the pragmatics of technology and the free invention of art, and bring them to some kind of successful synthesis. 

Recognition and reward

In 1987 while working at Pratt Institute I helped secure a Title III grant of $875,000 from the Department of Education in Washington DC. This initiative helps eligible HEIs to become self-sufficient and expand their capacity to serve low-income students by providing funds to improve and strengthen the academic quality, institutional management, and fiscal stability of eligible institutions.  In 2002 working with Professor Bruce Wands of the School of Visual Arts in New York we secured a NESTA grant of £5,000 to develop a Digital Salon exhibition. 

In 2007 I became Senior Research Fellow at Birkbeck having helped secure a major grant of £450,000 from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) to study an archive of Digital Art and Design donated to the V&A.   The donation came from Patric Prince – American art historian and collector of computer art – with whom I had worked closely in the United States. As Senior Research Fellow I helped organise an exhibition that took place at the V&A from 1/12/09 – 28/02/10 and developed with my colleagues at Birkbeck the symposium ‘Ideas Before Their Time’ at the British Computer Society.  We examined the development of computer-based art from the late 1970s to the 1990s using the collection of artworks and publications assembled by Patric Prince.  We established a framework for understanding the medium in its art historical, cultural and technological context.

In 2009 I was awarded a HEFCE grant of £10,000 to develop ideas for research informed teaching.  In 2014 I worked with my colleague Lucy McLeod to apply for a HEFCE PSS Bid, £70,000.  The bid was successful and has enabled us to see whether the intervention of mentoring would support widening participation students and raise their awareness and appetite for postgraduate study.  In 2016 I supported the Pallant House Catalyst Endowment Match-Funding Appeal and was able to help them raise £20,000 of their £1,000,000 appeal.

I am a member of the following professional bodies, College Art Association, Winston Churchill Fellowships, Computer Arts Society, Alumni RCA network, SIGGRAPH ACM.  I also contribute papers to conferences including the Association of Art Historians and Electronic Visualization in the Arts (EVA) in the UK and the College Art Association and SIGGRAPH in the US.

Recent exhibitions include Harbours and Havens, Portland Gallery, London 2024; Turning the Tide, The Sherborne, Dorset 2024; Concrete Abstraction, Shanxi Contemporary Art Museum, Taiyuan, China 2024.

Educational development activity 

With my colleagues at each academic institution I had to challenge the two main approaches to teaching computers in Art and Design:  one is application based and about acquiring skills; the other stresses the importance of learning principles, often by teaching programming techniques.  I persuaded my colleagues that programming is only one of a number of ways in which artists may develop a personalised means of using technology.  Proprietary software packages exist which allow an artist or designer to have an intuitive approach to working with computers rather than a formulaic one.  I always ensured staff provided a context for the learner to innovate or find improvements in the way a task is carried out.  The student should learn to do things which no-one has done before or which no-one has done in quite that way before.  I embedded a five-week inter-disciplinary project in our Technology Issues unit to encourage the development of hybrid genres of practice.

At Ravensbourne we had different types of students: those who wanted to upgrade their skills, those who wanted to specialise in digital arts and those who wanted to pursue original research.  My knowledge of designing and validating new courses enabled me to encourage and support staff in the development of new areas of study in Digital Media, creating course offerings with specialised options, reflecting student preferences and catering to emerging markets. I supported staff in attending trade shows and conferences so they could see the opportunity to develop new courses.  In 2016 we validated a Games Design and Virtual Reality course to take advantage of the new 3D gaming landscape being created by companies like Oculus and Facebook. I contributed to Ravensbourne’s hosting of the VRUK event by co-ordinating our postgraduate students to support the VR workshops being offered by start-ups.

My biggest challenge however was creating a flexible and efficient studio environment for the emergence of a new breed of professional artist and designer, knowledgeable about human communication, the arts and emerging technology, equally at home with both creative and analytical styles of thinking.