AN AMERICAN video artist is to be honoured with an honorary doctorate of arts from the University of Sunderland today.
New York-born Bill Viola, 49, has pioneered video as an art form. He made his name in the North-East in the Year of Visual Arts in 1996, when he caused a sensation with a video installation, The Messenger, at Durham Cathedral.
The work, commissioned by Canon Bill Hall, senior chaplain to the arts in the North of England, won worldwide acclaim.
The accolade comes a day after Mr Viola's latest work, Quintet of the Astonished, was unveiled at an exhibition at the National Gallery in London
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