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JAMES P. GRAHAM
(.b 1961 in Windsor, UK. Lives and works in London and Italy.)
James P. Graham is a multi-media artist working in film, photography, drawing and sculpture. He is autodidactic, having left Eton College at 18. He began his career in photography while working in Paris, and transitioned to TV and cinema when he left for London in 1994. Within this period he completed international commissions in editorial and advertising photography as well as television commercials. His decision to pursue a career as a fine artist followed a two-year sabbatical, during which he refused all commercial work in order to concentrate on creating his first purposeful artworks in 2002-3. These were screen-based, experimental film works using Super 8 film and framed within a landscape of “metaphysical and ontological significance.” Having trained traditionally in photography and filmmaking, Graham particularly enjoys the interface between analogue processes and high-end technology. By mainly using landscape and nature, his work often references the now disused term scientia sacra, permeating chosen locations and objects with a metaphysical and ontological significance. As well as interpreting and re-creating notions of “sacred space,” his work is infused with ideas that derive from intuitive and ritualistic sources. The results can be enticingly intangible, and in some cases, totally immersive. Graham cites two fundamental factors in his work: first, intuition, or the catalyst behind the creation of every artwork, and second, resonance, or the result of the work as expressed through the viewer.
James P. Graham’s work has been shown in major museums and biennales around the world, including: Eleventh Plateau, Historical Archives Museum, Hydra, Greece (2011); Busan Biennial, Museum of Contemporary Art, Busan, South Korea (2010); Locus Solus, Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece (2010); Volcano: from Turner to Warhol, Compton Verney, Warwickshire, UK (2010); Searching for Empedocles, Islington Metalworks, London, UK (2009); Space Now!, Space Gallery, London UK (2007); Musee d’Art Moderne, Luxembourg (2007), amongst many others.
Graham’s first large scale work Iddu (2007) was made over 5 years on the landscape of the active volcano Stromboli in Italy and jointly funded through the Arts Council of England and the NESTA Foundation. This 360 degree multi screen film installation was first exhibited at MUDAM Guest House, Musee d’Art Moderne (MUDAM) Luxembourg in 2007 in the form of a 9m diameter, 3m high tent .and subsequently at the Busan Biennial, South Korea 2010, curated by Takashi Azumaya. In 2010 It was adapted into a two screen work Iddu – study in 60 degrees for thecritically acclaimed exhibition Volcano: Turner to Warholat Compton Verney, Warwickshire, UK. In 2008 he made the first of his Suspended Animation sculptures, where Graham ‘enhances the living qualities of stone.’ Every flint contains a naturally made hole which ancients believed possessed healing qualities. The sculptural forms resemble warped skeletal frames imperceptibly hovering above the ground. This is not unrelated to his film Losing Seahenge (1999) which clearly laments the sacrilegious removal of a 4000 year old burial site to a sterile ‘geological zoo’, a site now lost for ever as a result of its autopsy and excavation. Some of his projects like Albion (2006), and the ongoing Voyageprint series, have been made uniquely using polaroid film, which is believed to be the only visual medium to successfully capture the energetic field of a place or person. His first solo show in Italy took place in 2015. The title ‘Calling for the Infinite Sphere‘ refers to a series of sculptures which uses the satellite dish, a modern everyday object, and transforms it from receptive to reflective portal. The title references a famous quote attributed to the ancient Egyptian philosopher, priest and alchemist Hermes Trismegistus. ‘God is an infinite sphere, the centre of which is everywhere and the circumference nowhere’. His latest project carries a more grave ecological tone, concentrating on negative energy generated by environmental damage and conflict in the Middle East. ‘Desacration’ (2018) is a series of works on paper which oscillate between 2D and 3D, using pen, watercolour, cut out paper, and plastic.
CHRONOS
From the Series “The Cycle of Life”, 1999, Video, 6 min 20 sec
Chronos is the second part of Graham’s Cycle of Life series, made between 1999 and 2001. It uses humor within everyday life to contrast the “use of” and “loss of” time. It was shot on location in Rajastan India between February and March 1999. The joyful soundtrack accompanies fast-paced images of street-side barber shops providing momentary respite from the ceaseless movement of a bustling city.
Seen now in light of the humanitarian tragedy unfolding in India due to the ravages of the pandemic, Chronos acquires a painfully wistful poignancy, harking back to more carefree times. Originally commissioned by Channel 4 Television UK in 1999, Chronos was selected by and later donated by renowned curator James Putnam for screening in the MOMENTUM Sydney exhibition (2010).