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Mike Collier works across a number of media and often in collaboration with artists, poets, musicians, composers and natural historians. His work is based on a close observation of, and engagement with, the more-than-human world.
He has been interested in visualising birdsong for nearly twenty years, and since 2016 has worked with the artist and natural history sound recordist Geoff Sample on a series of pieces based on birdsong recordings. Several are in this exhibition, including the large circular LED work, Song of the Wren – the opera singer of the avian world (2026).
Collier’s love of poetry is wide ranging, and he has recently made work influenced by classical Persian poetry, which describes the beauty of the night sky, the vastness of creation, and the insignificance of human life. Two of Collier’s small circular pieces in the exhibition, originally commissioned in January 2025 by the Aga Khan Centre Gallery in London, serve as a reminder of the transient nature of life and the eternal nature of the cosmos. Some of the images from this work have been developed, in collaboration with artist Tom Jordan and animator and designer Nora Nadvegi, into a thirty-minute animation (included in the exhibition) to accompany Dutch composer Richard Rijnvos’s new composition, Aphrodite for shō & string sextet (2022-23).
This is the fourth part of Kosmoscópio, a cycle in which each of the nine Musica Universalis components is depicted in a musical composition. Sometimes referred to as the ‘Harmony of the Spheres’, this ancient Greek philosophical abstraction contemplates the various proportions in the movements of celestial bodies. A special viewing of this work with Richard Rijnvos present for the event will precede the opening on the evening of Wednesday 4 March and run from 4.30pm.
Mike Collier is Emeritus Professor of Art and Ecology at the University of Sunderland and is a writer, curator and artist. He studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths College, London, before being appointed Gallery Manager at the ICA in London. He subsequently became a Curator and later a Lecturer/Professor of Art and Design, working extensively in the UK and abroad. Throughout his career, he has maintained his artistic practice. Much of his work is place-specific and explores our relationship to a ‘more than human’ world, paying close attention to specific environments he engages with. He has shown in the UK and abroad and his work is in a number of public and private collections. He has long been interested in Japanese culture and first visited Japan in 2004 having returned half a dozen times since then. His studio is based in Cobalt Studios, Newcastle upon Tyne, of which he is also a Director.
For further information or images please contact:
Jonpaul Kirvan, Programme Manager
tel: 0191 490 1294, email: info@vane.org.uk
Vane, Orbis Community, 65 High Street, Gateshead, NE8 2AP UK
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