Grey James 1986 C.W. Post College, Long Island University, Greenvale, NY, BFA, Painting/Printmaking 1990 School of Visual Arts, New York, NY Art Students League, New York, NY Grey James' paintings and mixed media works are concerned with the examination of specific motifs. Many of his core subjects are repeatedly and rigorously selected. At the center of the work is the idea of “Nothing.” As the artists observes: “there’s a lot going on in Nothing.” More Works from Grey James on Instagram @ queerot, https://bgfa.us/artists/james/index.html Interviewer: H, short for Hou Yuyao Artist: GJ, short for Grey James Originally published at WeChat: The MPI, Updated at ZHI HU:The MPI 对话艺术 H:Could you please tell us something about yourself ? Why telling through painting? GJ:I am a 58-year-old trans man, three-plus years transitioned. Took me a while to get here. I hope I live long enough to enjoy it. I’ve been painting forever. I have a BFA. I got serious about showing around 2002 or so. The process of finding a gallery eventually connected me with Bert Green Fine Art, first in LA and now in Chicago, and he’s been showing me since. About 16 years now. The work is absolutely story-based. It took me until recently to realize I might be a visual storyteller. It was not a conscious effort; In whatever place I’m living, or maybe the space I’m occupying, is the thing I want to examine. The thing in itself has the story, I’m only trying to hear it. Visually presented because the language is subtler. Visual language is based more on collective conscience and archetypes. It allows for both interpretation and delineation in a single object based on the experience of the viewer. Also, every little shift, every subtle adjustment, communicates an entirely different idea. I notice this most with faces, shifting lines in minor ways that gives me a whole different person. All this fascinates me. H:In a previous article you said that you have been painting male nudes, lemons, the sky, the sea and horizon for 20 plus years, how did that start and why stick on the same subject matter? GJ:I have no idea why, it’s just what showed up. And stayed. Whatever I need to say is satisfied by what has become a very succinct and efficient language. But the language isn’t necessarily the subject matter. The language is the means. The subject matter shifts and varies. The items portraying those shifts are enough. H:Over these years working on the same concisely focus, were there any alter ego or inner changes in the flow? GJ:There is no singular alter-ego. Whether or not I am, I never think I am painting myself. I always refer to the guys in the paintings in third person. They are also not entirely real. They are the vessel for idea, as symbolic as any other element in the painting. Any evolution over time I can only really put on getting older, honing things. H:What’s the persona of your characters in the painting? GJ: I am not aware of any singular persona, but I also don’t think too much about this stuff. The essence of every painting is probably a singular moment of a space occupied. How, by whom, and the relationship between the space and the occupant in that moment. H:The paintings appear solitude, silent, and tremendously power of contemplation to me. But some details of the sketches, the crown and bright color touch-ups feel like adding some playful but rebellious aspects. GJ:This is a really interesting idea to me. Wouldn’t it be funny if everyone were all bothered about the naked guys when it’s the lemons that are the rebellious thing? I like it! H:“Nothing” is an important concept to you and your creation, within your open-ended paintings, it could be seen in two extremes between Nothing and Infinity. GJ:They may very well be the same thing. “Nothing” is so underrated. It’s glorious! EVERYTHING happens in Nothing. All the good stuff. A whole lot of nothing that belongs all to you - all that space, all that silence. No barriers, no furniture to trip over, no preconceived ideas. We should be running towards this, breakneck speed. But we don’t. I don’t know why. H:The works can be read with “Gazing”, by exploring for years, as an individual, an artist, have you found your identity, your connection between who you are and who you paint? GJ:I absolutely have not. Crazy, right? My connection all these years has never been with a particular figure in a painting. It’s with the story - of which the figure has only ever been a component. Minus the figure the painting doesn’t work, but minus any other component it also doesn’t work. It’s the totality of components with which I connect. I am working on a painting right now, trying to find the guy. I’m looking at him thinking - I’m not connecting with this guy. So I have to keep … fishing … pushing paint around, shifting lines, until something clicks, until I see him. I’ll know it when I see it. H:What’s the next story for you to tell? GJ:This is my favorite question because this: when I got serious about painting in the early 2000’s, every show had a theme, and that theme was the space I was occupying at that given time. “Church” begun in 2001, “Night” begun in 2005, “Legs” begun in 2007, etc. I enter it, I live there, we are occupying this space together for that time period. Getting to know each other. Talking, listening. This last show, “Testosterone,” when I was coming towards the end of that body of work in 2018, it is the first time I realized that I’d been telling a singular story all this time, since the beginning, since “Church.” And now that story was done. So now what? What comes after this thing that drove me forward for so long, this thing that I’ve lived with all those years? I will tell you, the new show, it’s in my head. I am working on it now. And I am very happy to be sharing space with it. Maybe I’ll call it “Whole.” 。 (Here I would like to have a Chinese translation of this title as “凡 (Fan)”) 2019.3 Editor | Yuyao Images Credit to | Grey James ©2019 The MPI Media. All rights reserved. 版权所有
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