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Hi Fidelity, 2014-16 © David James, by courtesy of the artist
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Comatose, 2014-16 © David James, by courtesy of the artist
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The Tank, 2014-16 © David James, by courtesy of the artist
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Icon, 2014-16 © David James, by courtesy of the artist.
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Ed & Mike, 2014-16 © David James, by courtesy of the artist
Exhibition
David James: Civilisation
2 Oct 2017 – 25 Oct 2017
Event times
Tuesday to Saturday, 12 – 6pm and by appointment
Cost of entry
Free
Address
- 46 ASHFIELD STREET
- London
England - E1 2AJ
- United Kingdom
Travel Information
- WHITECHAPEL
- WHITECHAPEL
GALLERY46 is delighted to present Civilisation, the debut solo exhibition by the British artist David James. It is comprised of a series of drawings and paintings that explore the relationship between personal experience and the history of art.
About
James’s ‘drawings’ and ‘paintings’ are neither drawn or painted in the conventional sense. The drawings are the result of a meticulous sanding technique he uses to partially erase and modify the reproductions of masterpieces by artists such as Velázquez and Rembrandt, torn from the pages of vintage art books. This seemingly destructive act abstracts iconic works from the history of art to the point of oblivion, but in doing so James creates new images with new identities.
The paintings are, in turn, fabricated objects made from digital enlargements of the drawings on archival canvas mounted to board, with the addition of layers of resin, hair and grit. Through this process, each mark and scratch in the original drawing is amplified. The viscosity of the resin and the irregular texture of the added hair and grit increases the gestural appearance of the paintings’ surfaces, whilst also further abstracting their source imagery.
The sublime materiality of James’s paintings both seduces and repulses on equal terms, a tension that highlights the possibilities of legibility and appropriation in image making.
