John Wood (born in 1969 in Hong Kong) and Paul Harrison (born in 1966 in Wolverhampton, England) both studied at the Bath College of Higher Education. They have been working together since 1993.

Wood and Harrison create video works of minimalist performances, touching on themes of tragedy, comedy and irony. They are experiments in the physical limitations, scale and movement of the human body in relation to the surrounding environment, which has usually been constructed by the artists

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3D Bucket (2001), Table and Chairs (2001) and Watering Cans (2001) are part of a larger installation of Wood & Harrison's entitled Twenty Six (Drawing and Falling Things) first shown at the Chisenhale Gallery, London in 2002. This comprised twenty six television screen installation of similar short works, all under three minutes, which are looped continuously. The action is always shot from a fixed position, rendering the space in which action can take place square, flat and un-moving, and, as the title suggests, explore situations and actions in which mark-making and gravity play a large part. Each shows the artists, sometimes one, sometimes both, as the only protagonists. In these short films, we see an indication of the artists' desire to explore not only small, absurd gestures in the most pared down possible environment, but also the deceptively complex mechanics of movement which are at once existential and comedic.

Wood and Harrison have exhibited their work extensively internationally. Recent exhibitions include Some Words, Some More Words, IKON Gallery, Birmingham travelling to Musée Departmental d’Art Contemporain, Rochechouart and Kunstmuseum; ThunStudio Trisorio, Rome and Naples, 2009; MAM Project 005, Mori Art Museum,Tokyo, Japan, 2007; Art Now, Lightbox, Tate Britain, London; Selected Works, MOMA, Queens, New York, 2004. Group shows include Le Mouvement des Images, Musee d'Art Moderne Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 2006; Twenty Six (Drawing and Falling Things), Carnegie Museum Pittsburgh, 2005; the British Art Show 5, 2000.

Made in Britain Contemporary Art from the British Council Collection 1980-2010,China Federation of Literary and Art Circles Publishing Corporation 2010. ISBN 978-7-5059-7014-4.

Glossary

  • Contemporary

    Existing or coming into being at the same period; of today or of the present. The term that designates art being made today.

  • Drawing

    The depiction of shapes and forms on a flat surface chiefly by means of lines although colour and shading may also be included. Materials most commonly used are pencil, ink, crayon, charcoal, chalk and pastel, although other materials, including paint, can be used in combination.

  • Installation

    An artwork comprised of many and various elements of miscellaneous materials (see mixed media), light and sound, which is conceived for and occupies an entire space, gallery or site. The viewer can often enter or walk around the installation. Installations may only exist as long as they are installed, but can be re-created in different sites. Installation art emerged in the 1960s out of Environmental Art (works of art which are three-dimensional environments), but it was not until the 1970s that the term came into common use and not until the late 1980s that artists started to specialise in this kind of work, creating a genre of ‘Installation Art’. The term can also be applied to the arrangement of selected art works in an exhibition.

  • Lightbox

    A box incorporating a translucent screen, illuminated from within by a florescent tube or small incandescent bulbs. Originally used for examining transparencies, artists have adapted these into art works by replacing the screen with photographic transparencies.

  • Video

    Images recorded on videotape or on optical disc to be viewed on television screens, or projected onto screens. The medium through which these images are recorded and displayed.