Meet The Artist- Richard James - GOLDMARK - YouTube

This one's not easy really, is it? Because if you wanted this in words, you'd have been a writer and you chose not to be a writer. You do something else. Do you know, when we were putting this show up, which we did in the last three or four days, almost everyone who came in who had seen your work previously said, my goodness, hasn't it, I don't know, I don't know whether it's the word matured is not right or it just seems in some strange way it's fuller and stronger and crazier, crazier. Yeah, I don't know whether it's crazier. But what's what's interesting is that this is the first time, in fact, you've not been able to go out beach combing. Yeah. And one might have thought that that would have been an impediment. And it hasn't been that at all, has it? No, no, quite surprisingly, it hasn't really. I mean, I've always picked up bits and pieces from where I live along the Nen, so I've really got into it because I haven't been up to the Hebrides, so. And I just, I don't know, the new works just, just all developed from the stuff I found and the photographs I've been taking of trees and the sunsets and whatever, they sort of tied in quite well. So it's led the work down a slightly different, it's difficult to pinpoint exactly why, but it is different. The problem of looking at this work and maybe the way in which we should look at it. And it's interesting that we're sitting in front of this one, which is Dante's Inferno. And I want to read something from here. These are not my words, this is Max who wrote the catalogue, because he gives us, if I can find it, gives us an interesting way in. He's quoting T.S. Eliot, and I think this is particularly interesting. And T.S. Eliot wrote of Dante that the greatness of the divine comedy lay in its power to communicate long before it was understood. And I think that exactly the same is true of your work. We can look at your work if we so want to. And we can pick individual bits and we can go down rabbit holes looking at one thing or looking at another. And that can be interesting. But the real thing that's interesting is just to sit in front of it and see what it does to you. I don't know whether you've got any? I think that's right. I mean, I mean, I don't understand all that I put into them. I mean, most of them grow very steadily. And sometimes the narratives come in as you're finding the objects and making the connections between the objects. So there's a lot in there that I can't sort of pinpoint and describe. As Mike says, it's hopefully the end result gives a much more of a feeling rather than a story in a specific narrative. I think to myself, if we go out and we sit in front of a wood or we sit on a seaside or whatever, we don't sit there looking to understand it or to know it. We just sort of let it happen to us and we see what it does to us. And I actually feel that that's what great art is about too. I think that's what it does. And I think that's what this man here is giving us. It was really interesting when we first showed your work that right at the beginning we had a call from the assistant to the astronomer, Roy. He said, I've looked at this and it's all about how the universe works and I'd like to write about it. At the same time, we had a lovely lady from the Wellcome Foundation who got in touch and said, I've looked at this work, I really need to write about it because it's all about healing. And it is extraordinary how different people coming from different areas view what you've done and think it has to do with them. They are in a way seeing their story in it. And I think that's really special. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, as I said, you know, there's lots in there and people can find their own connections and I love to hear what people see in them and what they mean to people. An insight for me. Do you have any works of art at home on the walls yourself? And if so, what are they? I've got some of my own, very early ones, which I never had the courage to show to anybody. I don't, I don't collect art. I don't, I don't. Well, I've got a couple of bits that I've It was lovely to be taken to the Outer Hebrides and that was really rather enjoyed. Are you more religious than you let on? Good question. It's put me on the spot. Gosh, what a word. People often make the distinction, I'm not religious, but I am spiritual. Yeah, I could say that. I could say that. I know everybody else says that. Yeah, well, I do. That's why I didn't say it. But, but in a sense, it's, it's, in a sense, it's right. But I don't, it's very difficult. I'm very interested in religions. I'm very interested in creation myths and all that stuff. I mean, the objects I collect, I think, I mean, I wouldn't collect them if I didn't think they had a power in themselves. I mean, most of them are things that have been once living, so. The Christian religion comes through to me more. It, yeah, it does. Because, you know, that's, to a certain extent, that's been ingrained, hasn't it, in, well, it has been ingrained in me anyway. And I just use, I like to use the, the icon, really, the icon. It gives me a vehicle to promote what I find, the natural history, as opposed to, you know, pieces of dead saint or whatever it is, or even pieces of dead natural history. It's a way in, it's a way of, not subverting, I'm not really trying to subvert anything, but trying to promote the things that I find. I mean, you seem to have a sort of universality about human beings, that you're all made at the same start, you know. Well, everything is, and everything's connected in that respect. So, you know, that's why the pieces are complicated to talk about, because they contain everything that's relevant, especially to me, and to other people as well, you know. So it's difficult to talk specifically about them. It's just the hope that they give off an energy that connects with people. Have you had any sort of orders from Christian people? I mean, that sort of triptych up out there. I'm actually an Anglican priest, that's why. Oh, okay. And what's your reaction to it? Do you find it uncomfortable? Yes, I am. I think you bring together the sort of living in the dead, which you're not very good at, actually. Well, they're the same thing, really, aren't they? Yes, but it's not exactly what we like to think of the same. So do people have found the work uncomfortable? Yeah, some pieces of it. I don't, I make it, I don't see anything unpleasant in there at all. I'm quite intrigued by your development, what might you call it, the evolution of your work over time, because it certainly, the earlier work was very introspective, and you just, as you said, just get on with it, because that's what you wanted to do. And I just wonder if, as you get accolades, as people recognise your work, whether that makes you change, give you more confidence to do what you want to do? You know, I work in isolation, as most artists do. It's just me and the things I find, so I don't want to be trying to make things that I think are, you know, more successful or might be more commercially based. I mean, it's a tricky process. I like to just let things, as much as I can, just let things drift forward. And I hope, I mean, from what people have said, you know, it is going in the right direction, and I think they are. I think they're better than they have been, so I don't want to force it. I just, I like the work to find its own way, and I just try and facilitate that. As a fellow disgruntled graphic designer... Oh, you know what I'm on about then? That's actually a very different way of working, sort of, to graphic design, because you know exactly what it is and exactly what you're communicating, but you're not working on that. Did you find that refreshing or difficult? Oh, completely refreshing, yeah. Yeah, no, complete, it's complete freedom. Yeah, absolutely. I don't have any nasty clients to impress or anything. Just make, make what I want to make. Do you get really attached to some of the work and then find it difficult to hand it over to Natalie? Short answer is no. I get attached to some of the objects that I've found, so I do have my own collection, personal collection of objects that I wouldn't use in the work, because I don't want to lose sight of those. But the actual work, happy for the work to find new homes, hopefully, eventually. There's quite a lot of, when you look carefully, littering. Yeah, yeah. Is that from something that you've read previously, or is that something you actively kind of seek out, or do you make the image first and then that suggests... Yeah, but all of those things, all of those things. I mean, all the text is, I use a process called cut-up, which is not my process, it's William Burroughs and a few others, Beggar Bowie have used it. So yeah, I just collect little bits of text from whatever I'm reading, put them in a big box and then... Are you a big reader? Yeah, I read quite a lot, yeah. And I just take them out and rearrange them and then you end up with sort of subconscious... I cut up a lot of Bibles. I've got a lot of cut-up Bibles. Yeah, all sorts of... Sorry about that. All sorts of things, natural history stuff, scientific bits and pieces. As the piece is coming together, lots of things seem relevant that you hadn't thought about. I mean, it's difficult to explain the process, but even an object might suddenly take on its own significance within that piece, or the text might... If it works out well, things come together from places where you can't really pinpoint where they've come from. And they come together in the piece and then it works as you want it to work. The title for those behind you, did that come fairly late on, the title? No, that came unusually. They all came together quite quickly, probably because I'd just finished reading The Divine Comedy and thought, you know, I'll have a crack at that. And then the imagery just sort of, when I was messing about with some pictures I'd taken of close-ups of stuff on the strand line and got it on the computer, and once you start messing about, it just suggested instantly the journey up from hell to heaven. It's a strange world, isn't it? That great oil painting fetches tens if not hundreds of millions of pounds and is highly rated. Our civilisation has a way at different times of looking at different things and valuing different things in different ways. Here is something which, I'm sure I haven't seen it all, but I'm pretty old and I look at stuff all the time, and I have seen nothing anywhere that matches this.