Currently on view at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery, Exeter, UK, is ARTIST ROOMS Bill Viola, a solo exhibition of the internationally renowned video artist Bill Viola. A pivotal figure in establishing video as a significant form of contemporary art, Viola has explored universal human experiences such as birth, death, and the unfolding of consciousness since the early 1970s.

The exhibition highlights The Passions series by the artist, acclaimed for his precision and simplicity that incorporate influences from painting, photography, and cinema. Begun in 2000, this series is inspired in large part by Viola’s study of European religious paintings of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, as well as his personal experience of loss with the death of his parents. Appearing like moving paintings, the series is a silent meditation on time, ritual, and human emotion.

The three featured works on view employ extreme slow-motion techniques to convey the intensity and complexity of emotions, navigating the extremes of human sentiment. They include Catherine’s Room (2001), portraying a woman undertaking a series of daily rituals at different times of the day across five screens; Four Hands (2001), where the hands of three generations of a family slowly perform predetermined gestures; and Surrender (2001), depicting two figures in increasing states of anguish, gradually lowering their heads into the water. ARTIST ROOMS Bill Viola continues until June 2, 2024.