Stuart Croft (1970 – 14 March 2015) was a British artist and filmmaker. As an artist and a film maker, Stuart Croft utilized the aesthetics and linguistics of cinema and presented it in the context of a gallery. Writing and directing dialogue based narratives, Croft's films often weave together Hollywood styled characters in an endless cycle of story telling. Always shown on loop the films never have a beginning nor an end just an elliptical narrative that folds into itself. Croft studied at Newcastle Polytechnic, the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, and Chelsea College of Art in London, graduating with an MA in 1998. His work was shown widely in the UK, Europe and the U.S. Croft's work was usually shown in art galleries and contemporary art institutions, as installations or installed single-screen projections. The work uses the illusion in film narrative to investigate the fleetingness and impossibility to grasp time. Key works of the last decade include Drive In, Century City, The Stag Without a Heart and Comma 39. His work has been shown in galleries, contemporary art museums and cinemas in over 25 countries to date.
