Sharon Lockhart
1964–
Since the mid-1990s, Los Angeles–based artist Sharon Lockhart has become known for her conceptually and formally rigorous films and photographs. As a student at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, she was exposed to the work of James Benning, Hollis Frampton, Yvonne Rainer, Michael Snow, and Andy Warhol, artists who frequently explored the relationship between the still photographic image and its moving cinematic counterpart. Lockhart’s films, indebted to both the history of art and a critical history of cinema, similarly investigate the durational possibilities of the camera and the extended act of looking. The artist often focuses on seemingly candid yet elaborately staged everyday moments that are the result of extensive collaboration with her subjects.
Lockhart’s film NŌ records the meticulous mulching work of a Japanese husband and wife. Within the static frame of the artist’s camera, the film resembles a moving landscape, as the farmers pile hay and then slowly spread it across an empty field. With the same deliberate choreography of her previous films, the artist uses the lighting, colors of the landscape, depth of field, and the seemingly detached camera angle to investigate the underlying principles of photography and cinematography. The film, however, becomes more than a structuralist exercise. The title refers not only to the Japanese calligraphy character for farming and NŌ-no ikebana, a more radical form of ikebana flower arranging, but also to Noh, a popular form of theater in Japan. Through metaphor and metonymy, Lockhart creates layers of meaning embedded in time.
Introduction
Sharon Lockhart (born 1964) is an American artist whose work considers social subjects primarily through motion film and still photography, often engaging with communities to create work as part of long-term projects. She received her BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1991 and her MFA from Art Center College of Design in 1993. She has been a Radcliffe fellow, a Guggenheim fellow, and a Rockefeller fellow. Her films and photographic work have been widely exhibited at international film festivals and in museums, cultural institutions, and galleries around the world. She was an associate professor at the University of Southern California's Roski School of Fine Arts, resigning from the school in August 2015 in response to the continued administrative turmoil at Roski to take a position at the California Institute of the Arts. Lockhart lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
Wikidata identifier
Q3481523
Information from Wikipedia, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License . Accessed July 6, 2025.
Country of birth
United States
Roles
Artist, cinematographer, conceptual artist, musician, photographer
ULAN identifier
500114649
Names
Sharon Lockhart
Information from the Getty Research Institute's Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License. Accessed July 6, 2025.
