Artist using a variety of media; teacher; administrator. Born in Derby, Breakwell studied at the local College of Art, 1961–5, after which he attended the West of England College of Art, Bristol. In 1967 he staged his performance Restaurant Operations at Exeter Festival and Bristol Arts Centre. In 1969 Unword 1 was staged at Compendium Bookshop, Unword 2 following at ICA. By then Breakwell had established his preoccupation with the relationship between word and image, which was to appear in many forms in ensuing years. After being visual arts director at Bristol Arts Centre, 1967–8, Breakwell taught at Somerset College of Art, 1969–73. Other examples of the artist’s output were: one-man shows at Angela Flowers Gallery, Arnolfini Gallery and Scottish Arts Council Gallery, Edinburgh; the making of the films Repertory and The Journey in the 1970s; and his publication of Diary Extracts, Continuous Diary and Fiction Texts.
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Anthony Reynolds became Breakwell’s dealer in 1983 and he was the first artist to have a solo show at Reynolds’ new London gallery two years later. Breakwell’s 1989 exhibition National Sport at Reynolds’ gallery dealt with the mass hysteria that huge sporting events could provoke. Breakwell’s 1994 film Auditorium, made with the composer Ron Geesin, was particularly memorable, consisting of an audience facing the viewer, which, after the lights dim, reacts with alarm to an unseen performance and disquieting sound effects. After a residency at the school of anatomy at Cardiff University, Breakwell put on an uncompromising 1998 show at the Ffotogallery, Cardiff, called Death’s Dance Floor, filled with skeletal imagery. In 1999 The University Gallery, Loughborough, showed Breakwell’s Textworks 1969–1999, and in 2000 the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea, screened Auditorium. He had a one-year residency there, 2000–1, resulting in a solo show in 2002. The Other Side, a De La Warr commission filmed in the Modernist building, was a further disquieting piece: a tranquil dance scene eventually disrupted by the sound of breaking glass, thunder, screaming gulls and darkness. It was acquired by the Tate Gallery. The Arts Council also holds Breakwell’s work.
Text source: 'Artists in Britain Since 1945' by David Buckman (Art Dictionaries Ltd, part of Sansom & Company)
