James Green

Artist

[jamesdrgreen]

I AM HERE

Can I justify my existence? Watching re-runs of my life looking upon the sea. A diary of my past continually unfolding in front of my eyes, in a constant and perpetual cycle. It is familiar, yet distant, disconnected and emotionless. It resembles my memory but it is not like it was...i am here. I am here. I am here.    

[jamesdrgreen]

'I Am Here' 2014 Experimenting with light.

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Article for LaSalle College of the Arts - Praxis Press, 2015

Longevity and the Manifestation of Black

Sure we are all made by some secret power, who formed the earth and sea, the air and sky… (Defoe, 1719)

This opening quotation taken from Daniel Defoe’s book Robinson Crusoe (1719) is particularly apt when I think back to my work undertaken at LASALLE College of the Arts. Longevity and the Manifestation of Black (fig. 1,)was born out of an intense and intuitive period as part of Tropical Lab 5, LASALLE’s annual international art residency. This ‘secret power’ (Defoe, 1719) that Crusoe talks of that forms tangible elements such as the sky and air is how I look upon this installation. It is a work I see as a kind of secret – a secret maker of things. Perhaps it does not create the earth, or maybe it is warming up to something of the kind, but this rickety structure, clearly hand-made and on the brink of collapse is in production. Creating variations of black circles or holes both two-dimensional and sculptural, this splinter of a construction evokes a sense of mystery and unknown power.

Inspired by a trip to Ubin Island, situated in the north east of Singapore, I looked upon many roughly built but honestly made dwellings - some stood alone partly submerged in the sea. These solitary forms triggered a kind of melancholy in my mind – forgotten but beautiful structures devoid of their intended function, rendered useless. Can these deserted and stranded forms ever have a new utility or meaning? Like the island bound Crusoe, can these structures start using materials around them to create and redefine themselves?

Longevity and the Manifestation of Black (fig. 1,) is a personified work, a structure with a past, present and future. Like Stanley Kubrick’s monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), perhaps it now contains all the answers to any questions it is faced with. Perhaps that answer is a black circle. Is this where we will have to venture, into a void to find absolution? Will we disappear like some magic trick if we fall in? Whatever the works true intention, it has a secret power. It spits out images and sculptures, some laid neatly while others are crushed or broken. Mistakes maybe? Or perhaps these are the real versions; the complex and tangible elements that Crusoe talks of.

What I see scattered on the floor is poisonous earth and hallowed ground, a turbulent sea and a quiet lake. A gush of wind that picks up leaves and then ceases and drops them. A sky that rumbles with the blackest of nights but then breaks with a dawn of the brightest sun.

[jamesdrgreen]

'I Am Here' 2014 Installation Shot. Lighthouse number 2.

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I Am Here. 2014. Multi-media Installation Work in progress.

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#TheNationalGallery - Diary Entry of the permenent collection.

The National Galley has always been a magical place for me. It is here where you can confront face-to-face, works of art that have shaped the history of picture making by challenging the conventions and concepts of their age. As a young student at GCSE and A-Level Art, the grand rooms of The National Galley and its many great artists burned a permanent and lasting image into my mind.

Rembrandt’s fragile and emotionally moving self-portraits are always a first stop for me. His extraordinary life with its great heights and extreme lows adds to my pleasure in viewing his paintings. At his height he was extremely famous and wealthy, a true genius, but unfortunate circumstances pursued with bankruptcy, the death of his wife and his son Titus. I always make an effort to give his final portrait, painted within months of his death time and contemplation. Walking into other nearby rooms, you pass Velasquez, Titian, Vermeer and a host of other giants of art history. I often find myself thinking while walking briskly past other ‘lesser’ known masterpieces, how sad and quite dismissive my act of going on a whistle stop tour of my childhood favorites. These artists who hang next to Rembrandt and Vermeer spent their life dedicating their efforts to attain a skill and express what was their own personal view of the world. Therefore I think it always necessary to extend my ‘greatest hits’.

Perhaps not a new revelation more of a re-connecting, was my experience of a painting by Constable, titled, ‘Statford Mill’ 1820. A large landscape depicting a river in a rolling English countryside with various people fishing and boating, a scene of everyday life. This painting for me shows both a link to the past but also an insight into the future of painting. Steeped in the tradition of topographical and romanticised painting, you clearly know where you are in space. You can imagine breathing the same air, hearing noises of the river and the tweeting of birds. Constable was a master of describing surface and texture. After a sustained period of time, I noticed a small section of the painting in the bottom right hand corner that triggered parallels with Monet’s Water Lilly series. This ‘painting within a painting’ is very close in technique and execution, an example of space and light. A new ‘greatest hit’ was born many times over. Every section in this work held for me infinite composition and comparisons. We can and should always learn from the past, what may be already familiar to us or even dismissed as uninteresting. To quote Sibyl Moholy-Nagy in reference to Paul Klee;

‘…give sense to the vulgar,

give mysteriousness to the common,

give dignity of the unknown to the obvious,

and a trace of infinity to the temporal’.

I found something new by looking again or perhaps looking afresh at the ‘common’. Paintings which had already given me ‘the answer’ I realise have not. This is an important lesson, art can always surprise and its limitations are only us, the viewer. The Impressionist Room, which helped shape my mind as a young student at school, I purposefully singled out a work by the artist Vuillard (The Earthenware Pot). A colourist and friend of Bonnard, his engagement with pattern through colour and tone has always astonished me. Parts of this painting seem to physically push me away yet I dig my heels in to push back. The highly patterned wallpaper behind the figures seemed to protrude from the surface of the work creating a gravity that I rarely experience. Rhythm, edges and closed space are some of the ideas I pondered on the way home; a lesson learned from studying Ukiyo and the ‘Floating World’ no doubt.

My visit to The National Gallery was one of comfort, seeing ’old friends’ whom I have not seen for a number of years, however it was also one of surprise. Various artists have new things to tell me, some have grown bigger yet stayed the same size and have reminded me that time does not stand still. I can look at a young Rembrandt and experience the exuberance of youth or stare into the eyes of a broken old man, each reminding me of my own existence and perhaps where I may be heading. These great works are a constant force, moving and changing with me - a perpetual source of mystery and wonder. 

[jamesdrgreen]

'I am here (lighthouse project)' Mount board, paper, video and sound. 2013

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'I am here (lighthouse project)' Dry point 2013

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JAMES GREEN M.A (DISTINCTION)

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A small mention from Ceri Hand Gallery, London.

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Camberwell College of Art. Degree Show 2012. 

Video by Russell Morton.

Interview with Rebecca Fortnum.

Interviewer, James Green.

http://camberwellmafineart2012.co.uk

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This is Where I Stand.

Multimedia construction with video monitors

2012.

This installation shot is close to my final arrangement for this work. I have experimented with other elements such as wooden paddles leaning against the wall, on top of the structures themselves... It has been suggested, and I agree, that perhaps the space (and I mean the room as a whole including others work) is not big enough for a subsidiary work. Although I think that the paddles would be an effective work in their own right and do add to the thought of being stranded or an object that would help you (albeit not very well) if you were plunged into the sea. These pieces, along with my 'Unstacking Tiles' video piece I think will have to wait until I have a larger show of this work.

Giving the main structure and video piece more space will definitely focus attention on the piece, but also free up some thinking space between my work and others. Less is more sometimes.

Looking critically at this work, I think I could have pushed a bit more colour into some of the plainer structures. The later structures have slightly more about them colour wise/structural wise - but I suppose when one makes objects in a production line, they get better/ faster and more efficient. Although saying this, the concept initially was a person obsessively making floors and practicing how to stand on them when he needed them for real. Trial and error is part of it. The badly made floors are just as important as the well (or better!) made floors. I could have also sourced different casters for the work, size, colour. Maybe fixing huge casters to small floors or tiny casters to huge floors?

Ultimately the group of works are what they are. Each structure is the size it is, the colour it is, and has the surface it does - I never felt the need to change a surface or height, but made a large number and selected from them - it is after all an obsessive act - making.         

[jamesdrgreen]

Blue Paddles (In progress). Supports for 'This is Where I Stand' 2012. Gloss paint on wooden batons. Ideally, if I had another show with this on going work, I would like to see what a row of these (with the addition of a black gloss painted oval on the end perhaps?) would look like. Lent against the wall, like a row of giant matchsticks. I also feel the paint drips on the wall would be something I would consider if I installed this somewhere - adding to its creation in the space and physically tying the wall and objects together. To me it almost has a Jim Lambie/ Gary Hume type connection visually - conceptually it does not deal with poplar culture, but they act as a counterpoint or aid (as paddles) to my floors on stilts. Useable if one finds themselves at sea stood on a floor.     

[jamesdrgreen]

This is Where I Stand. 2012.

(in progress).

As the installation grows, I am experimenting with more colour. I have chosen equally ‘tasteful’ palettes of pastel colours. These colours add to the domestic feel of the work - colours you would find in your kitchen, bathroom, living-room etc... This obviously unifies the work in a colouristic sense and also singles each piece out as individual works in their own right. I have also calmed the use of wood filler on the joints too, so not to make each structure the same - thus giving each floor its own character.

I am also going to continuing experimenting with the gloss painted paddles I have made. I have already re-done one in black gloss, trying to get a smooth finish by pouring the paint directly on. Further to this, I am going to try a coloured paddle, with the wooden baton being painted a turquoise blue with a black end. I’ll also have black finger marks on the wooden baton so it can be interpreted as being a useful object (although it is not).

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'Unstacking Tiles' 2012

Taking away until nothing is left. A video in reverse - which should be about building something but it only ever shows reduction. This video is connected to my work, This is Where I Stand. Building floors for when there is no floor. I wanted this video to have an almost symmetrical feel about it. Great attention was made while making each tile level and even - obsessive and compulsive. 

This video will probably not be included in the final install, but I can imagine this as part of a bigger installation of the work. Perhaps a monitor being supported with tiles? Or casually placed on the floor. What I may experiment with if this were to be part of a bigger show, is to try more tiles. Stacking them really high, like a game of Jenga gone crazy. I would shoot it with a wider angle, making it more a performance - clearly depicting my body -pushing this idea of 'play' and humour/ failure within my work.

Randomly thinking about this idea of stacking absurdly high, I could then make this 'tile tower' an object. Fixing the layered tiles with adhesive - like the Leaning Tower of Piza. Slightly Arte Povera... but as an idea I think this could work as a piece within this growing group of works entitled - This is Where I Stand.      

[jamesdrgreen]

This Is Where I Stand.

(In progress).

I'm continuing to experiment with possible arrangements and combinations of objects and video. I think that stacking the floors on top of each other is working, with the video monitors sat high. The video's as both object and image gives the structures an added insecurity and also contextualises them as 'floors'. Because of the hight of some of them, the surface is undetectable, so the video acts as a conceptual anchor. But I think the differing heights and sizes of both object and image is creating an interesting dynamic between the works. 

Logistically speaking, the electrical connections and balancing of the video equipment may cause some future problems. The cable lengths and amount of extension leads needed is problematic. I'm not concerned about the visual nature of wires hanging and DVD players on show, because thats the way it is. I see no need to hide or disguise the process of creation or the set-up as whole. However, from a health and safety point of view, running 10 plugs into a variety of extensions leads from one main socket may be an issue. This is something I may have to compromise about.