Terry Flaxton has been an impassioned, indefatigable presence in British Independent Video for almost two decades. During this time, he has assembled an impressive body of work encompassing powerful, polemical documentary (produced as a member of ground-breaking outfits Vida and Triplevision) and highly personal, poetic video Art'. Steven Bode, Film and Video Umbrella.

Since 1976 Terry has been creating moving image works. His first work, Opening Up, was made as a collaboration and began his initial enquiries into issues around the creation of moving-image artworks, documentary as an art form, and the act of documentation and the creation of installations. Since then, Terry has created and shown work around the world in various forms including single-screen, installation, cinema and television. Flaxton's latest work enquires into the nature of high-resolution image-making.

More recently his career has included Directorship of the Centre for Moving Image Research where he was Professor of Cinematography and Lens Based Arts at the University of the West of England. He has exhibited at the Cathedral of St John the Divine in New York and the Presidential Palace in Florence (2017).

His journey began near Hoxton, a neighbourhood in East London, UK, where his father was born, which Flaxton describes as now being “about the hippest place on the planet.” Today, Hoxton, like most places adjacent to major urban areas, hosts indie art galleries, creative digital/moving image hubs and the usual trendy bars. 

However, when Flaxton was growing up this area was a notoriously dangerous and rough area of London. It was during his days in the East End that Flaxton met a working-class artist who inspired Flaxton to seek out the endless possibilities of art and, importantly, inspired him to become an artist.

“I encoded what art had to offer but realised that true art has to come from the self when it’s stripped bare of cultural influences and seeks to speak its own truth.“

— Terry Flaxton