Biography
Brian Hartley is a Glasgow based artist whose work is a combination of visual art, photography and design. Integrating these skills with his experience as a physical performer, Brian has created multi disciplinary collaborative performance works through his company stillmotion.
Much of stillmotion’s work is aimed at a multi-generational audience and incorporates participation and performance. Productions include We Dance, wee groove, a participatory dance performance for children and families which has been touring to sell out audiences nationally and internationally since 2008; and Scotch Hoppers, an outdoor installation and performance project inspired by street games and performance that was part of the Glasgow 2014 Cultural Programme. From 2017-19 Brian was part of an ERASMUS Plus project between Starcatchers, 2 Turven Hoog (NL) and ACTA (Paris) researching performance for early years audiences which has led to an ongoing research project with Anne Beth Schuurmans (NL) and Matt Addicot (Scotland) which was preparing for presentations at festivals in 2020 before COVID-19.
As a visual artist Brian has created visual work with drawing, painting and photography, after studying at Glasgow School of Art. His visual work developed via drawing dance and performance at the New Moves dance festival in Glasgow which led to exhibition opportunities nationally and internationally, and has work commissioned by the University of Stirling Visual Art Collection and in the part collection at Threshold Art Space in Perth via a screen dance commission. In recent years he has been taking production photos for many companies in Scotland including Scottish Dance Theatre, Barrowland Ballet, Feral Arts,
Connected to Brian’s visual art practice he has been working as a designer for theatre and dance, making set and costume design and graphic design, and has worked with a variety of companies in Scotland and internationally; from 2015 – 2018 designed the community panto for Glasgow Life, and designed Four Go Wild in Wellies, and GROW for Independance and has also worked for Retina Dance Company (Belgium), Starcatchers, Tabula Rasa Dance Company, The Arches Theatre Company and Borderline.
His work with theatre has also involved working as a physical performer with companies such as Oceanallover, Tabula Rasa Dance Company, Conflux and Derevo and via ongoing residency opportunities at Sura Medura in Sri Lanka, and with PAL (Italy), Artistes a Suivre (France) and work with choreographer Suba Subramaniam.
Brian’s multi disciplinary work has also led him to work with many local authorities and arts companies across Scotland and in England delivering a range of participatory arts activities incorporating visual art, design and dance and in 2020 and 2021 schools residency projects with Imaginate and as part of a team of artists delivering the Creative Skills programme for early Years staff with Starcatchers.
If you are interested in working with Brian or stillmotion, contact Brian here.