James Tailor

Based London, UK

PURCHASE ARTWORK

About

My work is not circumscribed to any particular medium, I take assemblage as a vehicle for exploring the mnemonic and affective qualities of found objects. Countering the dematerialising character of mainstream visuality, my practice goes back to an embodied materiality that links the personal and the social.

The melancholic severance inherent to the discarded objects I integrate into my assemblages is countered by the unifying quality of an obsessive reworking through acrylic paint. My obsessive application of acrylic paint showcases a desire to display an engagement in the kind of labour intensive work that, since conceptualism the artistic field has seemed to be less passionate about. My fastidious although sometimes fetishistic and even addictive process suffuse my work with human presence and a sense of artisanal fulfilment that transforms melancholy into mourning.

Through impasto, draping, sculpting, casting and pleating, I work against the materials so as to convey a sense of uncertainty that avoids cognitive decodification and looks for affective responses. From this point of view, my work doesn't represent or allegorise anything but indicates those places where embodied experience and rationality fail to fit. Through pink I try to bridge the gap between the personal and the political. Even though there is a comforting quality to that colour, it also brings about a gendered notion of trauma through illness, disease, social stigma and mortality. Sentimental and intimate, sheltered from the temperatures of the political, pink has been all but, until very recently, prohibited from appearing on flags and emblems. Stranger to contingencies, silly and vulgar, it knows no modesty. Thrilled to inhabit its interiority, it aspires to no dimension other than a brief, and very personal, intoxication. Some examples of these are ‘Consignment F25’, 'The Small Things' and then 'Holding On', all part of the larger pink body of work which ended in 2019. In 'The Small Things' and 'Holding On' the pink acrylic paint acts as a visual counterpoint to the low utilitarian quality of wooden crates, among other found objects. This assemblage captures an anamorphic presence at breaking point, but with a light hearted approach. Then in ‘Consignment F25’ the painting & crate structure is painted using a melancholic magnolia gloss paint which melts with the soft pink. The paradoxical conflation of comfort and heaviness comedically conveys trauma and loss.

There used to be a point where I anchored my work to painting and although there is an undeniable link to that medium, this is no longer a primary concern of mine. Allowing my works to exist, as they are, somewhere in between painting and sculpture, opens new possibilities. Turning melancholy into material form, I aim at creating indexical objects that point at the way human intuitions have been compromised by a dematerialised notion of a conceptual world.

Education

2014-2017 Masters of the Arts, University of the Arts - Central Saint Martin’s (Distinction)
2016 Artist Internship with The Chapman Brothers
2011-2014 Bachelor of the Arts, London Metropolitan University (Distinction)
2011-2009 Diploma in Fine Art, City Lit (Distinction)

Selected Exhibitions & Awards

2020 - Capacity, The Smallest Gallery in Soho. London
2020 - A Matter of Soul, ASC Gallery. London
2020 - No Time Like The Present, Public Gallery. London
2019 -2020 - Bodies Self and Sex, No20 Arts. London
2019 - About Painting, No 20 Arts. London
2019 - White Conduit Projects, The Size of Thoughts. London
2018 - Five Years, Two Cakes. London
2018 - Peer Gallery, Bound. London
2018 - MLF Marie-Laure Fleisch, Art Brussels. Avenue du Port 86C, 1000 Brussels, Bélgica
2018 - Cob Gallery, Form. 205 Royal College Street NW1 0SG
2018 - Observatorium, Club Conscious. Samberstraat 40, 2060 Antwerp
2018 - MLF Marie-Laure Fleisch, In Favour of Three Dimensions. 13 rue Saint-Georges | Sint-Jorisstraat1050 Brussels
2017 - Degree Show Central Saint Martins, Show 1. London, United Kingdom

Press

2020 - Fad Magazine 'Top Seven Things to see from the Outside'
2020 - Delphian Gallery 'Interview' 2020 - The Asian Curator 'Interview'
2019 - Artmaze mag 'Feature'
2016 – Night Flowers (Damen Frost)
2015 – Complex Typography, The Garden (Book)
2015 – The Catlin Guide 2015 (Book)
2013 - Beige Magazine 2013 – Platform Six (Magazine)
2015 - 10x 10 Charity Auction