released December 10, 2018
Jez riley French
focusing extensively with sound as both material and subject JrF’s work over the past four decades has involved installation, intuitive composition, scores, film and photography. Alongside performances and exhibitions Jez lectures and run workshops in various countries on field recording / located sound as an art form and has also developed a range of specialist microphones widely used by recordists, sound artists, musicians, sound designers and cultural organisations. He also works as a curator of live events, of a record label, of sound installations and an arts zine ‘verdure engraved’.
In recent years he has been working extensively on long form recordings of surfaces, spaces and situations and developing the concept of photographic scores and ‘scores for listening’.
Aspects of his work have been exhibited or performed in events and installations alongside that of Yoko Ono, David Bowie, Pauline Oliveros, Chris Watson, Jana Winderen, Alvin Lucier, Annea Lockwood, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Stars of the Lid, Jeremy Deller, Sarah Lucas, Brian Eno, Signe Liden, Sally Ann McIntyre, David Toop etc, at galleries including The Whitworth Gallery (Manchester), Tate Modern and Tate Britain, MOT - Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (Japan), Artisphere (USA). During 2017 he was commission by the UK’s City of Culture, Hull 2017, to deliver or be involved in several key projects inc. Height of the Reeds & North Atlantic Flux. For 2018 Jez is working on several major projects inc. one focused on the design & detail of spaces between buildings in Japan and further works exploring structures resonated by compositions and their locales . He is also working with his daughter, the artist Pheobe riley Law, on a series of performative collaborations.
Key works are pieces capturing the sound of the dolomites dissolving, ants consuming fallen fruit, buildings vibrating, teleferica’s interacting with locales, the infrasound of domestic spaces around the world, glaciers melting in Iceland and the tonal resonances of natural and human objects in the landscape.
jezrileyfrench.co.uk