Mark Lewis (b. 1958, Toronto, Canada) is a contemporary artist known for his multidisciplinary practice spanning film, video, photography, and installation. His work interrogates the act of looking, particularly as mediated through cinematic language, often drawing attention to the viewer’s complicity in the gaze.
In Peeping Tom, Lewis extends his investigation into what he terms the “parts” or “bits” of cinema—titles, end sequences, and other peripheral elements. The work takes its title and inspiration from Michael Powell’s seminal 1960 psychological thriller of the same name. Revisiting and reimagining the unseen footage from Powell’s cult classic, Lewis creates the fictional films shot by Mark Lewis—the murderer who films his victims as they die. By constructing what was originally left unseen, Lewis underscores the tension between visual pleasure and moral discomfort, questioning how film manipulates our role as passive observers. Powell’s Peeping Tom tells the story of a young filmmaker, Mark Lewis, who, in pursuit of the ultimate image of fear, murders women and films their deaths using a specially modified camera and tripod. These images are part of a larger “documentary” that Mark is making—one that includes the discovery of the bodies, the police investigation, and ultimately, his own death.
Lewis’s broader practice often blurs the boundaries between fiction and documentary, public and private, past and present. In The Last Great Film (2008), a camera crew surveys a derelict film studio, offering a meta-commentary on the fragility of cinema as both a historical medium and cultural memory. Trained in the 1980s under Victor Burgin and collaborating with Laura Mulvey on Disgraced Monuments (1991), Lewis emerged from the Vancouver School of photo-conceptualism (1989–1997), a movement known for its rigorous engagement with image-making and theoretical inquiry. His work continues this tradition, fusing cinematic technique with philosophical reflection on spectatorship, historical memory, and the politics of visual culture.
Lewis has exhibited internationally, including Peeping Tom at Site Gallery, Sheffield (2000); Mark Lewis: Films 1995–2000 at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (2000); Landscapes at MNAC, Bucharest (2005); and Howlin’ Wolf at FACT Liverpool (2006). In 2009, he represented Canada at the 53rd Venice Biennale with Cold Morning, an installation of short films examining cinematic techniques and spatial perception. That same year, he presented solo exhibitions at Jeu de Paume, France, and MAN Museo d’Arte Provincia di Nuoro, Italy. His work has been widely exhibited, including at the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009) where he represented Canada, and institutions such as MoMA, the National Gallery of Canada, and Centre Pompidou. He is also a co-founder of Afterall, a critical research and publishing initiative based at Central Saint Martins, London, where he lives and works.
Peeping Tom was commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella and exhibited at Site Gallery in Sheffield, UK.
