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Wattsko

James K. M. Watts

"When given a chance to pursue their own logic, their own dream, the materials of these sculptures, abandoned by Man and Nature, never fail to give birth to something new.  It's really an evolutionary process grounded in hope."  

 Beginning with traditional paintings on canvas, James' work evolved into unique painting-sculpture hybrids.  “Living in New York in the Eighties confirmed my long-held suspicion that painting on canvas was an exhausted enterprise.”  In many travels including wanderings through the western deserts of the United States, he sought out places where “culture and the landscape are inseparable.  Where inanimate objects seem alive with an energy and presence.”

Since the early Nineties James has focused on creating pure sculpture, using the discarded refuse of both Man and Nature, and working with oxidation techniques and bronze casting.  “I wanted to create objects pulled from an alternative nature, recognizable, yet completely different from our own, objects that seem animated by a life force.  When given a chance to pursue their own logic, their own dream, these abandoned materials never fail to give birth to something new.  It’s really an evolutionary process grounded in hope.”

 Recently he began a search for a unique ground for a series of paintings that would try to capture the experience of landscape and sculpture.  “I searched for a texture that matched the weight of the light and color of these landscapes.  The landscapes themselves were vast and filled with wonder, but I realized I wanted the physical experience with the viewer to be on a small, intimate, almost private scale.”

James discovered slate to be the ideal support for his paintings.  “I love the fact that the ground upon which these paintings rest has itself undergone a transformative experience.  All slate under went a metamorphic journey millions of years ago, transforming, under tremendous heat and pressure, from beds of clay-like shale hidden deep within the earth into the hard, colorful stone we know today.  The ancient age and wonderful varieties of colors and textures of slates from all over the world add to the meaning, presence and sculptural quality of these paintings.”  He breaks and reassembles the slate paintings to depict “the notion of the ‘broken world’, the sometimes violent intrusion of the physical world into our inner landscapes, those inner refuges we hold close to us and try to inhabit in peace.  So we pick up the pieces and carry with us a broken image of that remembered perfection.”

James studied at U. C. Berkeley in the mid Seventies.  A trip to Florence in 1974 inspired him to finish his BA in Italian Renaissance History, and attend the College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, founded by the Tonalist painters whom he admired.  He received a BFA and has gone on to participate in over fifty solo, group and juried shows across the country and in Japan.  He has received numerous awards and scholarships for his work, and recently completed a major bronze installation for a private residence on the East Coast.  

"Let me help you with your next site-specific project, or provide a piece to fill just the right space perfectly, and create something atmospheric and unique that you and your clients will enjoy as an intregal part of your and their environment".

 

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