James Aitchison • Paintings & Drawings
I grew up in the California desert, along Highway 111 in the shadow of the Santa Rosa mountains. Drawing, painting, and reading provided summer solace. Frank Buck carried me to greener mansions. T.E. Lawrence was my navigator. Alone in dark, cool corners, my imagination knew no bounds. I traveled the world. No authority needed to be consulted. My pen outfitted my canoe for trips up the Amazon. I populated my Tahitian studio with maidens with my pencil. Rimbaud visited my desert hideaway. Wild horses fought among the sand dunes. My omnium gatherum served me, feeding my imagination with forms from which I created beings. I learned to communicate with accidents, and I was able to exaggerate the real.
In 1958 I was saved from myself by my 8th grade art teacher, who guided me to a traveling van Gogh exhibition at the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History. The door opened on that November day -- I took my first steps on a silent journey into the fragile world of painting, and I probably came as close as I’ve ever come to intuitively understanding what it is all about.
I work principally with oil paints, though I use a wide range of materials, including acrylic, encaustic and various print techniques. My work primarily involves the figure and often contains narrative elements, though that has not always been the case. I have come to believe as Ludwig Wittgenstein has said: "the human being is the best picture of the human soul." I approach the canvas without preliminary sketches, but with paint and an intuitive ordering of what the world has dished up. I make a mark as honestly and forcefully as I can and struggle from there until a new ordering is born and the work comes right. I look for opportunities to gamble in hope of discovering a memory, a sound, a sensation, a truth. For me, painting is an act of faith.
Work in Exhibitions
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