Timothy Sawyer Shepard is an expatriate American artist who grew up in between the USA and the UK, settling permanently in London via Paris after university in New York City and Washington DC. He has spent extended periods in the Montagne Noir in France between 2000 and 2015. He is interested in the overlapping relationships between perception, consciousness and memory an area that has accompanied him throughout his practice working with paper, photography, cine film and music composition as well as numerous project collaborations over both short and long terms.
Solo shows have been at Grosvenor Street Art Space, London (2013), The Dairy Arts Center, Boulder, Colorado (2014), the National Centre For Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder Colorado (2014-2015), and The Aldeburgh Beach Lookout, Suffolk (2014 & 2021) He has also exhibited with: Zeitgeist Arts Projects, Charlie Dutton Gallery, Caroline Wiseman Modern & Contemporary, London Art Fair, 20/21 British Art Fair, Standpoint Gallery and Collyer Bristow Gallery. His work is in private collections in the USA, UK, Japan, France and Germany.
Shepard has created a number of album covers, including Paul Weller 22 Dreams (2008), and Kevin Ayers, The Unfairground (2007). He has also created a number of music videos, usually working with super8 or 16mm cinefilm, including for Kevin Ayers, The Go-Betweens, Terry Edwards and Bandante (George Vjestica - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds).
Founded and curated the experimental music label, underground sounds (1996- 2000). underground sounds set about to challenge issues around copyright infringement over sampled music, and cut and paste in the arts in general.
underground sounds released sample-based music from alternative musicians from the UK and Germany on limited edition vinyl at a time when only a handful of shops (globally) stocked vinyl, whilst making the label's catalogue freely available as mp3 downloads from the label website. Some underground sounds releases consisted of an Ep with an original band recording by an artist working with underground sounds and a collection of new originals made by sample artists given free rein to chop and cut and paste whatever they wanted from the masters to make a new original.
Worked as a project-based studio assistant for Michael Kidner RA. (1993 – 2007), who beyond the studio was both a mentor and father figure.
Has been a guest tutor at Central St. Martins College of Art (1992, 1993) and a visiting lecturer at the Royal College of Art (2002).
Worked closely with the musician and songwriter Kevin Ayers on the recording of his final album; helping the legendary cult artist every step of the way to work again and return after a very long absence with a set of critically acclaimed recordings bringing together over thirty musicians in Brooklyn, Tucson, London and Glasgow (2004 - 2007)
Collaborated with the enigmatic filmmaker CS Leigh on a number of projects including Associate Producer and Editor on the feature-length documentary A Quiet American Ralph Rucci & Paris (2012).
Artist in Residence at the Centre de Sculpture in Montolieu (annually between 2000 - 2004) in the Montagne Noir, France. During the 2004 residency, Shepard completed and installed an award commission via the Sculpture Center as part of a pilot scheme from the French Ministry of Culture inviting artists to create works out of various historic monuments.
Has twice been Artist in Residence at The Aldeburgh Beach Lookout in Suffolk. (2014 - 2021)
Awarded the inaugural Francis Carnwath Prize for the Arts (2021)
Between 2008 and 2015 had a studio in the tiny Montagne Noir hamlet of La Galaube (for many years the summer home of 20th-century French writer and poet, Joseph Delteil and his wife Caroline Dudley). It was here amidst the extraordinary primordial beauty of a mountain and wilderness landscape that Shepard made work in a rooftop studio alongside innumerable spontaneous landscape interventions created during hikes in the region.
Has been a creative consultant working with film directors and in music production, marketing, sustainable personal transport and venture capital.
Was educated at Eton College and is a graduate of Georgetown University (C86), Washington DC where he double majored in Fine Art (sculpture) and Theology after transferring from Columbia University(C85), NYC.
Lives in Notting Hill, London with his 12-year-old daughter, Willow.
