Biography - Darren Almond

Born 1971 in Wigan, Uk. now working and living in London. British artist and Turner prize nominee (2005), Darren Almond concentrates his life's work on exploring geographical limitations and producing evoking work on time and duration which is usually connected to personal and historical memories. Almond uses techniques such as film(movie), photography, sculpture and installation to create his work.

Some of his work includes; Tuesday 1440 minutes(1996) which is a piece based primarily on time and duration throughout a day. one image was taken every minute throughout the course of the day, 1440 minutes (1440 images) that were then collected and mounted into 24 frames each frame containing 60 images each frame measuring 25.5 x 21.5 inches.

  Turner prize nomination, “If I had you” (2003). A film piece based on his widowed grandmother visiting Blackpool, England (where she spent her honeymoon with his grandfather) for the first time since the death of her husband 20 years earlier. The piece featured his grandmother watching as a lone couple dances in the Blackpool tower ballroom. Along to a soundtrack of gentle piano melody, along with every circular movement of their footsteps an echo of turning sails and the creaking of an illuminated windmill mechanism from the windmill on Blackpool promenade. This is almonds way of showing the reality of the passing of time and the certainty of death in life.

  Full moons started in the south of France in 1998 where he was out in the night with his camera and he had a thought, wondering if he could create an exposure using just the light of the moon. He set the camera up with a 15-minute  exposure (a randomised prediction) and took the image. When he arrived back home and received the contact sheet, he was surprised to see what looked to be a daylight exposure in colour. However, he said that the colour of the image looks off and slightly weird. He figured out that it was due to the movement of the moon in the image and that the lack of light in one single spot of the image created an exposure with no shadows. Almond, however, did not print this until nearly a year later when he called it the 15-minute moon and it became the first of the full moon series. All of the images in the full moon series were taken with an exposure of 15 minutes or longer. This once again captures time and the movement over that time.

  Some of his other works include bus shelters that have been transported from Auschwitz and oversized mechanical flip clocks.

All of Almonds work either captures, creates or records the notions of time. His full moon images capture the movement of continuous time by taking the image over a long exposure of 15 minutes or longer. This captures the movement of time and merges time to create a single, one of kind image that both captures movement, history, time and duration and creates something that the ordinary human cannot see. His turner prize nomination “if I had you” records both the present and the past of the life of this grandparents. This records, captures and creates a memory that would not have been seen otherwise and also helps us understand his grandmother. This connects every viewer to his personal life and to the loss of his grandfather. By doing this he also connects us to the time and to the history of their lives. His mechanical flip clocks create time and therefore are connected directly to the present time. The bus stops he transported from Auschwitz captures the history of time and uses the history behind them to connect us to the lives that were lost and the history behind Auschwitz. His 1996 piece ‘Tuesday, 1440 minutes’ almost creates a meditation in time and helps us realise the importance of time and also how we do not concentrate on the value of time. The way that he captures one image every minute over 1440 minutes (24 hours (a full day) points out the importance of each and every minute and also shows us how much time we are wasting.

It appears that the reason behind almond work comes from the importance of realising what time is and how important it really is. It seems that almond is warning us not to waste our time and savour every minute of it (shown within his ‘tuesday 1440 minutes’ piece) but to also reflect on the history (shown within ‘bus shelters from Auschwitz’ work) and explore what time can do and what time is. To realise that, just because we cannot see something with the ordinary eye it doesn't mean it is not there or coming (shown by his ‘full moon’ series).

It appears that the reason behind the importance of these realisations comes from his grandfather's death and that the inspiration to relay the importance of time and the importance of life comes from almonds grieving of his grandfather's death. But also his life. I believe he means to relay the importance of living not day to day but minute to minute and even second to second, enjoying every minute of your life and having a reason in life and most importantly to look back on your life when at your deathbed and have no regrets. I believe that the source and inspiration/realisation of his work has derived from the death of his grandfather and the realisation that time, life and death are all too real and that it all passes so fast if we are not careful.

 

Written and published by Ashley Tucker.