Derek Jarman (b. 1942, Northwood, England; d. 1994, London) was a British filmmaker, artist, stage designer, and writer whose multidisciplinary practice spanned cinema, painting, photography, garden design, and political activism. Jarman studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and began his career in experimental filmmaking and set design, working with theater and avant-garde performance. He became renowned for films that blend visual poetry, historical revisionism, and queer aesthetics, often collapsing narrative conventions in favor of sensory, symbolic, and autobiographical approaches.
Jarman’s work is marked by its engagement with sexuality, identity, memory, and mortality, as well as its resistance to censorship and cultural conservatism. His approach to art and film frequently foregrounded the body, the landscape, and materiality as sites of expression and political critique, with particular attention to LGBTQ+ visibility, the AIDS crisis, and the tension between history and contemporary experience. Jarman’s garden at Prospect Cottage in Dungeness is a living extension of his aesthetic philosophy, blending found materials, natural forms, and poetic inscriptions, reflecting his interest in the interplay between environment, art, and memory. Recurring themes in Jarman’s oeuvre include queer identity, AIDS and mortality, English history, myth, spirituality, and the politics of representation, explored across multiple media. He often used bricolage and collage techniques, emphasizing texture, color, and material presence over linear storytelling. Jarman’s films, such as Sebastiane, Caravaggio, The Last of England, and Blue, exemplify his experimental approach and his commitment to political and personal expression.
His work has been exhibited internationally in retrospective and thematic shows, including Tate Britain, the British Film Institute, Whitechapel Gallery, Victoria and Albert Museum, and documenta 10 in Kassel. Retrospectives of his films, writings, and visual art have also been presented at Centre Pompidou, Paris, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, highlighting his lasting influence on queer aesthetics, experimental cinema, and British art in the late 20th century.