Merlin James

Talbot Rice Gallery are delighted to show this major semi-retrospective survey of the work of Merlin James. This is the first exhibition, on such a scale, of Merlin James’ career, featuring paintings and drawings spanning the artists’ practice. The exhibition will open with a symposium entitled The Use of Painting with keynote speakers who will explore questions arising from the current resurgence of painting.

James' work is diverse and unpredictable in form and subject, including landscapes, interiors, apparent abstraction, paintings of structures such as sea walls and piers, figure paintings (often highly erotic) depictions of anonymous buildings and houses, and interpretations of old photographs from distant places.

A close relationship to Art History is central to James’ work and the paintings in the exhibition explore the traditions of Western easel painting. The relationship of his painting to the past will be highlighted in this exhibition by the inclusion of a work by the seventeenth-century Flemish artist Teniers from the University of Edinburgh’s Torrie Collection on permanent display in the Red Gallery at Talbot Rice. The painting will be replaced there by one of James’s canvases.

Merlin James (born in Cardiff in 1960) is a painter and art critic. James graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1986, and has Lectured and published extensively on painting. He has primarily written on mid twentieth-century artists, but also earlier figures including Titian, Hobbema, Thomas Jones.

James exhibits widely in Europe and America. Recent solo shows have been held at the Kerlin Gallery, Dublin (2003), Andrew Mummery Gallery, London (2002), and Brent Sikkema Gallery, New York (2002). He has been included in group shows at, among others, MW Projects, London, The Approach Gallery, London, and The Nunnery, London. Current and forthcoming group exhibitions are at artconnectionlille, Lille; APT Gallery, London; RHA, Dublin; Colby College, New York; and Whitechapel Gallery, London.'

A full colour catalogue accompanies the exhibition.

The Easel Painting exhibition will tour to BayArt Cardiff in 2004

Merlin James is represented by the Andrew Mummery Gallery, London, and Brent Sikkema Gallery, New York

Pressetext

Merlin James