ART CITIES:London-James White

James White black and white paintings depict everyday scenes and objects, such as plastic water bottles, keys, lamps and a series of open lockers. These everyday scenarios in anonymous locations create psychic spaces charged by the viewer’s contemplative state of mind. Armed with a realism White’s hypnotic paintings possess a photographic quality that infuses the seemingly mundane subjects with an undercurrent of suspense.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Blain|Southern Archive

The references for the works of James White are his own photographs, stripped of their original color. The artist presents new paintings is his solo exhibition “BODIES” at Blain|Southern in London. The subjects of this series of works are drinking glasses that become surrogate participants. Half-full, half empty, bearing marks and traces, they are a body of evidence. The mundane setting they sit within gives the scenes an air of familiarity, they could be everywhere and anywhere. In a departure from his earlier works, White now fractures the composition to add a new level of psychological disquiet. This is seen in “BODIES IV”, where a single image is refracted, and elsewhere in composites of two scenes, different places and different moments.  Suggesting emotional fissures they focus not on the relationship between the objects but on the people that are absent. The paintings become pieces of the larger whole as we fill in the gaps and impose our own narratives based on what is already in our minds. James White began his career as part of a collaborative duo exhibiting large-scale sculpture in the early 1990s. After parting ways with his artistic partner in 2001, White turned from installation to painting, dedicating himself to producing finely wrought, luminous black and white oil paintings for which he is well-known. Painted on aluminum, wood or plastic, his work has its origin in snapshot photographs taken of his environment both domestically and when travelling. The objects in the paintings imply a narrative arc that, similar to a cutaway shot in film, creates a psychological space for reflection on actions that lie outside the frame.

Info: Blain|Southern Gallery, 4 Hanover Square, London, Duration: 22/11/17-23/1/18, Days & Hours: Mon-Fri 10:00-18:00, Sat 10:00-17:00, www.blainsouthern.com