Cerith Wyn Evan’s conceptual practice incorporates a wide range of media, including installation works, sculptures, photography, film and text.

Wyn Evans began his career as a video and filmmaker, initially assisting Derek Jarman, and then making short, experimental films during the 1980s. Since the 1990s, his work could be characterised by its focus on language and perception, as well as its precise, conceptual clarity that is often developed out of the context of the exhibition site or its history. For Wyn Evans, installations should work like a catalyst: a reservoir of possible meanings that can unravel many discursive journeys. Moreover, his work has a highly refined aesthetic that is often informed by this deep interest in film history and literature. Indeed, Wyn Evans’ earlier creators often inhabit his work, an indication of his desire to keep their ideas in play or bring them back to life in order to use them as raw material for future thought. Often his works harness the potential of language to create moments of rupture and delight, where romantic longing, desire and reality conjoin. His ‘Firework’ pieces, for example, are wooden structures that spell out open-ended texts that burn over a designated period of time. His ‘Chandelier’ sculptures evoke notions of otherworldly communication by using sections of texts that have been translated into the flashing light signals of Morse Code. In his film and slide installations, such as The Curves of the Needle (2003), Wyn Evans manipulates sound to form a parallel ‘text’ to the visuals, where meaning is opened up by the unexpected slippage that occurs when the soundtrack is dislodged, changed or removed.

Cerith Wyn Evans lives and works in London. In 2011 he was commissioned by the Vienna State Opera to design the safety curtains for 2011-2012 opera season. Recent solo exhibitions include Kunsthall Bergen (2011), Tramway, Glasgow (2009), Inverleith House, Edinburgh (2009), MUSAC, Leon (2008), Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris (2006) and Kunsthaus Graz (2005). In 2009 he collaborated with Florian Hecker and Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary on ‘No night No day’ at the 53rd Venice Biennale and has also particpated in the Moscow Biennial (2011), Aichi Triennale (2010), the Yokohama Triennale (2008), the International Istanbul Biennial (2005) and the Venice Biennale (2003).