James Kail

Hello! In short summary, I believe art is there for the words we cannot find, and I guess, in essence, that's what I'm visually trying to discover: how we grasp these images, via ideas and interests into an ethereal, emotive resonance.

Generally my work revolves around the love and sympathy of the materiality of the neglected, holding potency in acts of remembrance and reflection through their tatter and texture. Through this, I work across multiple, ever increasing, mediums and methods; including print, mixed media and assemblage, yet forever breaking down materials through a collage mindset, constructing, layering, and revealing narratives to aid remembrance and relative suggestions.

I need to make art to understand this world, and collage helps me break down themes meditatively, by dissection and reassembling of imagery and components.

I inspire from concepts such as the Japanese wabi-sabi philosophy, embracing beauty in flaws and acceptance of nature’s decay as well as linking ideas and dilemmas on memory and permanence, if it be fogged by age or health, it’s a rediscovery through texture and the substance left behind.

Recently, since coming back home from studying Fine Art at Liverpool for 3 years, I'm looking back at previous, personal interests locally, including the heritage of our vineries and the cultural importance of the horticultural history, visually comparing it to the dilapidated glass 'ghost-like' structures we see around us now.