Henry Lopez Reviews Bill Viola

Bill Viola is an American born video artist born in 1951 Queens, New York.  His style straight away is heavy with drama and the unknown.  He tends to gravitate around the themes of the human experience, from birth to death and everything that comes between.  He works quite aesthetically with his videos, giving a straight on composition and has the videos usually move in super slow motion.  This gives his audience the chance to really take in the emotion of the actors has they go through whatever experience it is.  In this work titled Martyrs, Viola wants to show the passing of life to death for these martyrs.  There is a man buried in the dirt that slowly ascends off of him, a woman hanging by rope feeling the full force of winds, a man seated as flames grow higher and stronger, and a man drenched in water hung by the feet.  In the end, they all are shown a white light from above and thus ends the video.  During this, you can feel the suffering and it feels like there is no end for them.  Viola wants you to see their emotion of this passing, to experience, if only slightly, their experience.