About

It all started when…

I am an artist currently residing in London which is a far cry from my beginnings as a county boy on the east coast of Suffolk.  My journey started in the 1980s at Ipswich School of at Art, where I aspired of becoming a graphic designer, but the freedom my friends exhibited in the fine art department drew me in.  I then had to choose between photography and ceramics.  I chose the latter and went to do my BA Honours degree at Central St. Martins in London.  I was fortunate to be taught  by Rob Kessler, Richard Slee, and Gillian Lowndes, and with their input them another transformation occurred.  No longer was I to be a potter in St. Ives as the questions asked by the sculptural form suited my current way of thinking .  The work completed on the course awarded me with a full scholarship to study at Colorado University in Boulder, USA.  Here I worked under the guidance of Betty Woodman, Scot Chamberlain and Tom Potter.  The experience of working in a huge equipped department with access to a large studio was to lead to a change in scale and materials.  Another aspect was the landscape.  The college was at the base of the foothills to the Rockies, and cycling, skiing and bouldering were great distractions.  On returning to England in 1990 I got a teaching post as Artist in Residence and exhibited in Copenhagen.  This show lead to my first solo show at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Roskilde, Denmark.  At the end of the residency I started up my own studio in South London.  I was chosen by the curator Tessa Peters to be included in a show at the Barbican Centre called “Atlantic Crossings”.  I was subsequently shortlisted for the prestigious Jerwood Applied Arts Prize 2001 and the Arts Foundation Fellowship in 2004.  From here I was to have my first London solo exhibition with gallery Cosa and represented them for three years at COLLECT.  I have since taken part in numerous group shows, including; Award at Potteries Museum & Art Gallery (2011), Stoke-on-Trent; Ripe at the Crafts Council (2000) Solo exhibitions include; Abugation, Marsden Woo Project Space (2012); Galerie Sandra Buergel (2007); and Hypoplastic at Midlands Art Centre, Birmingham (2002). My work is also represented in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.  Presently and since 2000 I have been generously supported by Marsden Woo gallery, and been included numerous group exhibitions along side many of my tutors listed above.

The new work can be broken down into two separate groups. Both connected by marble. The pieces set high on rusty thrown pedestals with embracing brackets were derived from an idea I had looking at the Elgin Marbles at the British Museum. I was drawn to the metal bases that elevated the hefty silhouetted chunks of fractured marble, defying their weight and balance. The second group of pieces, and most recent, was more intuitive and process led. I was exploring new ways to build and stumbled upon a way to create flowing slabs with a tooled relief. This allowed me create forms similar to reclaimed architectural stone. With the surface I like to create a passage of time, a fragment of the past.

Through out my studying and studio work to date, I’ve drawn on the human form and architecture as sources for inspiration. Wavering now and again with trends and with the influence of peers. I think these diversions benefit my work as they can open doors to new ways of working and conceptual approach. Living in London has given me access to many museums and its from museums like the V&A and British Museum I have been able to study figurative sculpture. When I worked at the V&A museum for a while the “Three Graces” buttocks were in my eye-line, but it was the subtle curves in the waist and shoulders that drew my eye. This hard solid material was softened with the tiniest curve or fold transferring the mass this way and that. It is that element of contrast that I wish to capture and then place it in a form that has no reference to the body. This where the architectural portion comes in. Lumps of solid mass broken off, a detail eroded by time found in a archeological dig. With the human form I like to portray the relaxed form with its bulges, creases and the way the skeleton pushes through.

James