Last year, London-based artist Alexander James exhibited a collection of his work under the title 'These Colours Don't Run'. The work that made up the exhibition included pictures, mixed media works and customised clothes. For the start of 2017, James has launched the latest part of These Colours Don't Run, and taken it into film. Film has always been a big inspiration for James, with the idea of storyboards shaping his work and Western films influencing his painting.
Speaking about the new film element of the exhibition, James said "I wanted to combine the two – painting and a moving image. Recently a friend and videographer recorded me painting onto two large canvases. The recording was 48 hours long, but we sat through the whole ‘film’ – pausing, rewinding and picking certain aspects of my painting and layering it with footage I felt inspired by. The result was a jolted and controlled aesthetic, which I can then portray in my paintings." Like the rest of the works exhibited in These Colours Don't Run, the film is based around the idea of colours as signifiers and how people show their true colours in everyday situations, how they dress or how they act.
Alexander James' visual diary for These Colour's Don't Run, made with Lucas Smith and soundtracked by Zach Nahome, premiered last week, and you can read our interview with him from last year.
