Sandy Powell(II)

London-born Sandy Powell studied at St Martins School of Art and the Central School of Art and Design, where she specialised in theatre design, She started her professional career in fringe with the National Theatre, working on numerous productions, including Orders of Obedience and Rococo. She went on to design sets and costumes for productions of Lumiere and Son, Bright Side and Culture Vulture. As a student and one of the leading lights of the international theatre scene, she most admired Lindsay Kemp, the gifted director, designer and performer. On impulse, she spoke to him on the phone and said how much she wanted to work with him. After seeing samples of her work, he asked her to join him in Milan as costume designer for his theatre company. During her three-year spell with him, she worked on Nijinsky, a study of the start and madness of the great Russian dancer. She also designed the costumes for The Big Parade, a tragic- comic homage to the silent screen, as well as the stage and screen versions of A Midsummer Nights Dream. In 1985, she rapidly established herself in the world of video, working on many pop promos with director Derek Jarman, on his film Caravaggio and Zenith's For Queen and Country.