TERRELL JAMES: BREAK IN TO ENTER
January 21 - February 28, 2020
Online Exclusive Exhibition in collaboration with Artsy
Terrell James, Lipstick Traces, 2019, Mixed media on stone paper, 29 x 20 inches.
Spanning the last three years, the drawings collected here take structure from specific sources culled from James’ research and archive of images, as well as from observing natural objects in her studio. For instance, Bone 1, Threads 3, and Lipstick Traces were sparked by pine cones and equine jaw bones alongside images of Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka’s glass invertebrates and female Inuit artwork dating from the 60s and 70s, among others. Here, seed pods and salmon scales meet familiar studio inhabitants. Other works, such as Quiver and Red Waltz, spring from James’ recent trips to Vienna, where she studied paintings by Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel the Elder in particular.
Inspired by the revisiting of materials that she had not used since drawing in her youth, including colored pencils and pen markers, James explores how these basic art supplies have evolved. Many of them are now lightfast, permanent, and have an expanded variety of pigment and practical uses. In addition, James has also introduced supplies unusual to artmaking, including whitewall permanent markers which are sold for writing on car tires, and permanent wax markers used for writing on steel. Many of these works are also created on stone paper, a synthetic substrate created from ground marble dust that allows for the staining and lifting of colors, as well as for the wiping away of swaths of color much as James has done in her history as a printmaker. Here, freedom and assertion of line with the ensuing all-over tone of the color washes naturally enlivens James’ long standing practice of drawing and has developed a conversation with her established language as a painter. Unearthing these unusual supplies has opened new ways of approaching drawing, breaking through to nostalgic avenues to be explored with fresh sight.
Born in 1955 in Houston, TX, Terrell James has exhibited extensively in the United States, South America and Asia. Her work is part of the permanent collections at the Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX; the Menil Collection, Houston, TX; the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, MA; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; the Portland Art Museum, OR; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others.
For further information, please contact amanda@jasonmccoyinc.com.
SELECTED WORKS:
