About


Aboutbeyond

[email protected]

Instagram:  paullemmon_art

Digital video is everywhere. Thanks to the miracle of data compression it can be streamed to our screens in an instant (give or take a bit of buffering). Though considered a solid transmitter of truth since its earliest days, and utilised as such in news footage, journalism, video interviews, closed-circuit TV and the like; the medium of moving image has now acquired a whole new fragility in it's digital form. The coding and compression algorithms needed to transfer video files to our screens have given rise to powerful potential for distortion, fragmentation and manipulation. As with video tape, digital film is really only a set of instructions for a monitor describing how the illusion of an image should be displayed. But, unlike it's VHS predecessor, the coding can be directly accessed and  rearranged systematically or randomly. The visual results of this breaking of the code can be striking, but, as we have already seen with the development of 'deepfakes', so too could the ideological.

My paintings exploit the possibilities of this video disruption by applying it to all manner of film footage found online, from films to TV, to news to influencer clips, in order to explore the shape-shifting qualities of the digital world, foregrounding its illusory qualities and their effect on our idea of truth and what lies beyond the screen.

1968 Born Birmingham

1993 BA (Hons) Graphic Design, Kingston University

Group shows
2026
'VISTA: Midlands Landscape Painting Today', The Courtyard Gallery, Solihull
Surreal Solihull - The Originals Show, Midlands Arts Centre, Birmingham
'Inside Out', The Cot Gallery, Biddenden, Kent
2025
'British Contemporary', Forward Gallery, Birmingham
Wrexham Painting Prize, School of Creative Arts, Wrexham
'Surreal Solihull', Solihull High Street
2024  
'Beacon', Canal Basin, Coventry
'The Final Show', Meter Room, Coventry
2023  
Coventry Biennial, Herbert Art Gallery & Museum
'Hotel Artopia', Arcadia gallery, Coventry
2022  
'SEVEN: Skyscraper Stories', Arcadia gallery, Coventry
Prize Exhibition, RBSA gallery, Birmingham
2021   
'On Paper', Paper Gallery, Manchester
2016   
The Art Movement, London
2015   
London Art Fair, Islington
2014   
Art Hamptons, New York
Monaco Art Fair
2013   
London Art Fair, Islington
Paris IPSO
2011    
Avenue, London 
Bath Fine Art
2010-13 
20/21 International, Royal College of Art, London
2009 
National Open Art Competition, Chichester

Solo shows
2026 
'Through the Screen', Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry
2018 
Brew, Folkestone
2017 
The Art Movement, London
2014    
The Art Movement, London
2013
Avenue, London
2010 
Art London, Chelsea
Avenue, London
2008/9 
Langton Street gallery, London

Public commissions
2025
'And takes me to my dreaming', Surreal Solihull, 
Solihull High Street
2023
'Memories of a future city', University of Warwick collaboration 
for Coventry Biennial, Herbert Art Gallery & Museum

Awards
2008/9
RK Harrison prize, NOAC, Chichester