Richard Deacon is widely regarded as one of the principal British sculptors, best known for his innovative use of open form and his interest in materials and their manipulation. For more than two decades, Deacon has created unique sculptures in a wide range of materials such as laminated wood, polycarbonate, leather, cloth and ceramic. Working on both a domestic and monumental scale, his structures combine organic and biomorphic forms with elements...

Stuart Brisley is perhaps best-known for his disturbing physical performances which pushed his body to extremes. But his work as an artist over four decades has embraced sculpture and installation, films and fictions, large-scale participatory projects and, most recently, the Web. Illustrated with archive footage and photographs, this profile of the artist explores his understandings of collaboration and community, of politics and the market, of humour...

Tony Hill's films present entirely new ways of looking at the world in which we live. His extraordinary sculptural films turn and transform, squeeze and stretch the landscape and constantly challenge how we see what's around us. They are films about perception, time and space but they are also films about the body and memory and being alive. Above all, they are constantly surprising and delightful and, often, funny. Many of the films have been created...

Howard Hodgkin is one of the world's leading painters, whose art is admired both by critics and by a wide public. Beginning with a remembered experience, Hodgkin works on his seductive and complex paintings for long periods, characteristically producing richly coloured, sweeping compositions, which continue into the picture-frame itself. These paintings uniquely straddle representation and abstraction, at the same time as they demonstrate both an...

"A definitive portrait of Queen Elizabeth II on the seventieth anniversary of her reign by a renowned royal biographer."--Amazon.

"The Spinning Jenny was invented in 1770, and with that, a new era of manufacturing and industry changed lives everywhere within a generation. A world filled with unrest wrestles for control over this new world order: A mother's husband is killed in a work accident due to negligence; a young woman fights to fund her school for impoverished children; a well-intentioned young man unexpectedly inherits a failing business; one man ruthlessly protects...

Ian Davenport’s 48 metre-long painting Poured Lines transforms the tunnel beneath a railway bridge in Southwark, close to Tate Modern. The painting’s numerous vitreous enamel panels were created in a German factory where they were baked at fearsomely high temperatures. This film follows the artist as he creates this remarkable public artwork. Like all of Ian Davenport’s work, Poured Lines rigorously explores the qualities and possibilities of...

"I often feel that trying to make something realistic is the one criteria I can feel fairly sure of. Another one I sometimes use is, would I like to have it in my room? And I occasionally use the idea, if God allowed you to show him one thing to judge you by, would this really be it?" Julian Opie's highly distinctive depictions of the modern world are created in an extraordinary variety of media. His bold portraits, subtle landscapes, unconventional...

Gillian Ayres studied at Camberwell School of Art from 1946-50, before running the AIA Gallery with painter Henry Mundy whom she married. As a young artist in the 1950's, Ayres was closely involved with leading British abstract artists including Roger Hilton. Ayres was quick to respond to European tachism and American abstract expressionism, creating a body of work that placed her in the forefront of her generation. In the sixties she was the only...

Since winning the Turner Prize in 2003, Grayson Perry has become the nation's favourite transvestite potter. In this film, he speaks engagingly about why he is an artist that uses ceramics and not a potter, and about the defining themes that run through his work. He explains the elaborate, labour intensive process involved in the making of his work and how he typically uses a variety of different techniques. Alongside the edgy undermining of our expectations...