Paintings by James

Er........

2009-03-31T11:39:00.000-07:00

My word, 4 whole months since I last posted; I do apologise, but my new job has left me so drained I can barely pick up a brush!

I'm currently working on a portrait triptych and a novel, so my creative energies are being fully harnessed.

Sadly, my novel writing and anguished re-working of the same 3 canvases doesn't make for good reading (e-mail me if you disagree), so a dignified silence has been established Chez Nunn :p

Anyway.....hope to have something to show you all soon, even if it's just a work in progress.

Stay arty peeps!

More news!

2008-12-06T09:43:00.000-08:00

Hi peeps, just a further update for all of you (loosely speaking) who show an interest in my work.
I've got about 3 pieces in progress at the minute, and there'll be a revision to 1 or 2 existing pieces, probably 'Elizabeta' and 'Autumn', although Autumn seems popular so I might leave it alone....we'll see what my mood is like at the time I decide to do something!

The 3 pieces in progress are:

An untitled landscape piece which is giving me the mother of all headaches;
A piece entitled 'Same crimes, different faces', which is proving a real test of my abilities;
and an icon painted in a fusion of Serbian Orthodox styles and my own.

So keep checking back, there may be a sudden flood of new work for your viewing pleasure!

And for all the LSA's out there, remember this: You don't need a pension until you start to smell like biscuits and piss :p

'Sarah'

2008-10-30T07:47:00.000-07:00

Ker-ching! 2 paintings in one month, I feel quite the prolific artist at the minute!

This painting came about when my fiancee, Ana, was having coffee with her sister Aleksandra, who suggested to her that 'Herr James' (as she calls me) should paint her portrait.

After battling the wind whilst carrying this 1 metre by 1 metre canvas to the bus stop, I got the bugger home and got started. 2 weeks later, and here it is.

Artistic license, as ever, has been used, but both Aleksandra and Ana are happy with the result, so I can leave this one alone at last!

And if you're wondering why it's called 'Sarah' and not 'Aleksandra', that's because Ana wanted her parents to call her little sister Sarah, and when they didn't she decided she'd call her Sarah anyway, hahahahaha!

Angel of the Carnival

2008-10-11T10:22:00.000-07:00

Wow, just noticed I haven't posted anything for almost a year! Busy does not do justice to how mad mylife has been over the last 12 months, but I won't go into that here.....

Anyway, here's my latest piece, 'Angel of the Carnival'. I went for a comic-book feel here, with strong lines and flat blocks of colour, and a sense of mystery, both with the main character and the location.

Hope you all like it (Ana, Jilli and Bapuji, hahahaha) and there IS more to come!

And apologies for the camera flash below the eye on the left of the picture :(

PAINTING NEWS!

2007-10-21T09:08:00.000-07:00

Hi all, sorry about the lack of recent posts, but my attention has been monopolised by a commission portrait I'm working on and a few photography projects.

Now, the more regular (and observant) readers among you may have noticed my prices have gone; the inspiration for this was Radiohead's recent announcement that fans could pay what they thought their latest recording was worth instead of paying a fixed price. I only like a couple of their songs myself, but as a statement, I like it!

So, I'm going to use a similar principle from now on. If you'd like to buy a painting, make me an offer that is at least the delivery to your part of the world plus what you think the piece you would like is worth.

Happy shopping! (I hope)

'Autumn'

2007-09-22T05:36:00.000-07:00

Here's my latest piece, 'Autumn'; I like to think of this as a contemporary view of the 3rd season, where so many rich colours, scents and memories are evoked by the falling of leaves from the trees.

Use of mixed media on this work creates an ever changing variety of textures, which only become apparent in certain lights/from certain viewing angles. It's also very tactile!

The St Valentine's Day Massacre

2007-08-15T09:52:00.000-07:00

Hoped this painting would be the one where I really did have some control over it, alas, my organic style has thwarted me again!
So what started life as a clean, fresh, riot of colour and starkly contrasting shapes become an homage to the murders of 7 mobsters on the 14th of February 1929 in a Chicago warehouse....

And why 16 squares?

7 for the victims

5 for the perpetrators

3 for the ones that got away

And 1 for the dog that revealed the warehouse's secret......

16" x 16" box canvas - acrylic, ink, acetone and adhesive

Oculo

2007-08-12T09:00:00.000-07:00

I started out with an image of an eye, and then went from there really....regular readers (if there are any!) will know that anything that happens after the main inspiration is painted is usually completely at random, which I suppose means I fall into the category of abstract art.
Anyway, I painted an eye, and was going to make the entire canvas just a cheek and an eye, when I noticed that the rough edges I'd left were encouraging me to extend them. The background shapes/vines came about to tie everything together. There's no real meaning to this; I just had a 'vision' of an eye floating against a background!
16" x 16" Box Canvas, Acrylic and Ink

The Forgotten God

2007-08-09T11:41:00.000-07:00

This isn't new per se, as I painted it about 6 months ago, but only recently got to liking it! It was just based on a random 'photo from the 'net, and I sort of put some of where I live into it too....
The title comes from the spire of rock in the foreground; whenever I see something like that, I get a real sense that this was an earlier civilisation's focus of worship, but now it lies forgotten, abandoned, just another lump of stone on a wind blasted moor.....
Don't expect to see many landscapes though, I just can't seem to make myself enjoy painting them!

Elizabeta

2007-08-05T13:35:00.000-07:00

Right; this started as a straight portrait, then I got disenchanted with 'straight' art, and got freaky on its ass! Et voila; 'Elizabeta'. I went for a limited palette (blue being the main colour) with highlights in ink. I was trying to create something sinister and lifeless, as I would imagine a vampire to be, and hopefully I succeeded! Not sure if I should have added the tips of barely visible fangs though...might have been a bit O.T.T if I did.

Still Life

2007-07-01T06:53:00.000-07:00

It may look as though my output has been prodigious of late, but I actually painted 'Lost Hopes' and drew 'Powder and Paint' yesterday; this, which I haven't given any title to other than 'Still Life' I created just after lunch today.

Full of bagel and pain au chocolat I got to thinking about art classes at secondary school, where the whole purpose of the curriculum seemed to be to either draw a dying yucca plant or imitate aboriginal art at the instigation of the pretty cool Mr Trendberth, an Australian exchange teacher.

So here's my take on those tedious, wasted hours spent drawing a living plant in its death throes; this was rendered in ink and acrylic on a canvas roughly 12" by 10" in size.

Powder and Paint

2007-07-01T05:07:00.000-07:00

While I was waiting for the first layer of paint on 'Lost Hopes' to dry, I googled some images and found one of a young woman with an elaborate hairstyle (check the original image out here: http://www.more-hairstyles.com/prom/p16.jpg).

This got me thinking; so much of what we are is artifice; women cover themselves in cosmetics to appear different to how genetics made them, and men and women alike try to project an image to the world of who they want to be perceived as....at the end of the day, we're all just powder and paint aren't we?

So I doodled this on Daler Rowney black HB portrait paper with a Derwent inktense pencil, scarlet ink and oil pastel.

Apologies to the young lady in the picture if I've portrayed her in an unflattering manner; feel free to contact me and ask for me to remove this if this is you.

Lost Hope

2007-07-01T05:01:00.000-07:00

Jeez.....where to begin? Been on a bit of an emotional roller-coaster lately; my girlfriend was meant to be coming over for 2 blissful weeks next week, but unfortunately the British Embassy decided that she's some sort of potential absconder and denied her a visa. The reasons they gave were weak, and this led to me being unable to stop crying and having to take a day off work because I was emotionally fragile and also drunk.
But, me being me, I decided to turn this into something creative, so here's an abstract based on the emotions I felt at the time; it's acrylic, leaf skeletons and ink on 24" x 30" canvas, with the application methods being palette knives, brushes, fingers, and direct from the tube/bottle.

A Midsummer Nights Dream

2007-06-24T12:44:00.001-07:00

Here it is at last!
I tried to convey the disjointed images of dreams, with conflicting sensations of pleasure and fear, normality and fantasy....I might not have been successful, but only you can tell me!
Let me know what this image makes YOU feel...

Nebuchadnezzar laments the fall of the tower of Babel

2007-06-01T10:46:00.001-07:00

At last, it's finished! Hope you all like it!

2007-05-26T11:51:00.000-07:00

This is probably the most conventional portrait I've done so far, simply called 'Ana', after the subject. My only real thought behind this was "Can I paint a picture of someone entirely in an achromatic palette?". And the answer to that one? Er...no. I loved painting this one though, it was my first painting after a 10/11 year hiatus, and it was great to see something emerging from the canvas that was more or less what I'd envisaged.
Acrylic on Canvas Board, Dimensions 20" x 30", Satin Varnish

2007-05-26T11:47:00.000-07:00

The obligatory self-portrait: here I wanted to present myself how I perceive myself, but also draw attention to what I feel most people notice about me - hence the attention paid to my long hair, my goatee, and the florid skin on my cheeks and forehead. By omitting my flesh I've tried to convey how I feel to be a core element of MY world, while the black straps/bars signify my feeling of being separated from the world of the viewer. Which is why I called this 'As I see myself'.
Acrylic on box canvas, 20" x 16", Matte Varnish

2007-05-26T11:38:00.000-07:00

Ah, 'Forbidden Fruit'! Who hasn't had this kind of person in their life? A friend, a colleague, someone you get on a bit TOO well with, but you never get together with for whatever reason...This is based upon my friend Cassandra, who I care about immensely but must remain forever inviolate. Well, by me anyway!
Acrylic on Box Canvas, 20" x 16", Satin Varnish

2007-05-26T11:37:00.000-07:00

Cower in terror before 'Lucifer's Daughter'! The title actually came to me partway through painting it, when I added the fiery tones to the eyes to give the expanse of black and grey a little lift; again, apologies for the blurred picture, I really must stop get a tripod....I was very pleased with this one though, as it elicits an inexplicable fear in the viewer, but also a strange attraction!
Acrylic on Box Canvas, 32" x 40", Matte Varnish

2007-05-26T11:33:00.000-07:00

I named this one 'Ecstasy', because in the flesh (not my blurred photo, apologies everyone) the subject has an air of almost post-coital delight, enhanced (or so I think) by the bold, yet complementary background colours. And it's based on my girlfriend, who makes me feel ecstatic, so very appropriate I thought! Some people have compared this to Roy Lichtenstein's output, not so sure myself......
Acrylic on Box Canvas, 24" x 20", Satin Varnish