Artist Spotlight: Dex Hannon

Dex Hannon is an interdisciplinary artist based in Blyth, Northumberland. Originally from Manchester, his work spans painting, digital art, film, music and photography. His approach is driven by experimentation and continuity rather than fixed outcomes. As he puts it, “My driving force is, what else can it be? That’s the method… that’s the whole method to my work.”

Rather than keeping each medium separate, he uses one to shift or challenge another. He also revisits older paintings and reworks them digitally. This approach continues across his wider practice, where the work rarely has an ending.

Dex’s way of working developed through photographing his paintings in progress. Those photographs became the basis for new digital works. He recalls, “I didn’t really know why I was doing it. I thought I was recording the process, but it turned out that I was using those images to make a digital piece of work of the painting.”

After moving to Northumberland, Dex’s focus shifted to the things around him. He became interested in structures and landmarks in Blyth and along the coast. He photographed wind turbines, ships and beach huts, using them as starting points for new work. 

From these images, he began making films using very limited source material. The films then became material for further work. He describes his process as “taking one photograph of something, and then creating a 7-minute film that broke it apart, distorted it. Then reexamining the film itself, frame by frame, and creating new films from singular found frames.” He identifies this as “the DNA running through the work.”

The ongoing transformation in his visual work is reflected in the music he creates. He works with a collaborator, AneurGasm, exchanging tracks and reworking them repeatedly. “We send each other a track and then the other person will do something to it. Destroy it, dismantle it, recreate it, and send it back.”

The idea of energy, both historical and current, runs through his practice. His project, krakfish, began with a single photograph of the support vessel, Vole Au Vent. Built to maintain offshore wind farms, it dominated the landscape in Blyth port for a while. "Blyth is the centre of the UK for renewable energy," he notes, linking this to earlier periods when coal powered the area. "Blyth, all the way through history, has been the place of energy."

A focus on renewable energy has also influenced Hannon's commissioned works. He was commissioned by Northumberland County Council to create a large-scale work based on his images of wind turbines. The work is now installed as a 55 metre hoarding in the town centre. 

His recent immersive film commission for the Energy Central Learning Hub was created using just three photographs of the building taken at different times of day. Using limited source material means that the process of creating his work is labour-intensive, digitally editing individual frames to create the finished work.

Despite this, Dex’s work remains centred on making and process rather than automation. He chooses not to use AI in the process of making art partly due to environmental impact, but also because the act of making is what matters, explaining “the bit that’s really exciting to me is the process, so I’d never want to give that up.”

He also incorporates his experience in producing music to enhance his video works. For his Energy Hub commission, he combined a 1960s folk song about the power station in Blyth with electronic music, resulting in a fully immersive installation. 

Dex’s approach to showing work is shaped by his own experience of art education. “I was the first person in my family to go to university,” he explains, noting that gallery spaces can feel unfamiliar or uncomfortable for people who are not used to them. In response, for his first shows he removed titles from all his works so people were free to come up with their own interpretation.

He continues to limit how much explanation he gives, due to a concern that “if I started explaining it to people, I’d worry that they felt the need to understand what I’m trying to say more than they should what it means to them.” Instead, he places emphasis on the viewer’s experience, stating “If they make a connection, great. If they don’t make a connection, that’s fine too.”

Dex Hannon’s work is available to view and purchase at https://exhibtd.com/artists/dex-hannon.

Featured image: Dex Hannon, Coal Dust Crushed to Clean Pixels, Digital print on canvas, 2025