Out of extremely objective systemization comes extreme subjectivity.
~ Bill Jeffries

The making of meaning is a fundamentally social act.
~ Nicholas Baume

 

Black and White, April 8 – August 12, 2016

 

Baron Gallery – Group Exhibition of Contemporary Art

BARON GALLERY
293 Columbia Street,
Vancouver, BC, Canada V6A 2R5

Group Exhibition of Contemporary Art
Featuring Vincent Dumoulin, James K-M, PEETA, Greg Swales
May 29th – July 24th, 2010

“In my paintings, cross-cultural appropriation can allude to Native beadwork, old floor tiling, post New York school abstraction or minimalism, a board game without pieces (since the work moves without them), a Navaho blanket, or Aztec or Mayan sacred geometry. These aspects represent appropriated traditions that don’t usually coexist and a collision of cultures that are somehow resonant with each other. These are metaphysical appropriations beyond the gestural and ironic and collide to reveal a sentient conscious unknown. Yet my work remains within the realm of Western abstract painting, constrained by a square piece of plywood (24″ x 24″), interacting with its stained grainy surface, superimposed by a contemporary abstract figure.”
– James K-M, 2010

Newman Ruminals (Yellow, Sienna, Black, Red, Blue)
Stain and acrylic on plywood
24″ x 24″ each, 2008 (Titles by Jasa Baka)
(Order changed during show to: Sienna, Black, Red, Blue, Yellow)

 

Mural in Edmonton

Free Rain

A 16’ x 16’ public mural

by Vancouver artist James K-M

A public mural commissioned by Joe Clare

Opening Sunday, July 19, 2009

3 – 5 PM

at 9206 95th Avenue (west wall)

Edmonton, Alberta

For more information call Joe Clare at 780-913-5447

RSVP at project web site: http://strathearnmural.net

About the artist:

James K-M lives in Vancouver, B.C. and has exhibited internationally since 1978.

His most recent exhibition of paintings was at the Simon Fraser University Teck Gallery in 2008

His next exhibition will be in Camagüey, Cuba in December 2009. Artist web site is at https://jameskm.wordpress.com

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Artist Statement:

This mural is based on a small 2′ x 2′ painting I made in 2007. That painting and this mural are both called Free Rain which is an intended play on the notion of a liberating and free-rein of metaphysical perception. But I also see the abstracted shapes in the painting as rain-like, though it is equally valid to see them as suggesting other objects in the physical world. As rain I see the shapes ‘falling’ in four directions; up, down, side to side. Why not? And it’s not that rain can or can’t do that. It’s that (metaphysical and physical) nature can form many patterns that represent our metaphysics and collective unconscious, and that nature and metaphysics are always in dialogue with each other. And therein lies the poetry of life and what art is supposed to represent.

This mural is based on a small 2′ x 2′ painting I made in 2007. That painting and this mural are both called Free Rain which is an intended play on the notion of a liberating and free-reign of metaphysical perception. But I also see the abstracted shapes in the painting as rain-like, though it is equally valid to see these shapes as suggesting other objects in the physical world. As rain, I see the shapes ‘falling’ in all four directions, up, down, side to side. Why not? And it’s not that rain can or can’t do that. It’s that (metaphysical and physical) nature can form many patterns that represent our metaphysics and collective unconscious, and that nature and metaphysics are always in dialogue with each other. And therein lies the poetry of life and what art is supposed to represent.