ABOUT
James Lieutenant at opening of Give up the ghost at Galerie pompom (Sydney) - photo by Felipe Olivares
James Lieutenant is an Australian visual artist, currently based on Ngunnawal, Ngunawal and Ngambri country (Canberra).
He is represented by Jennings Kerr.
James Lieutenant’s artworks are held in numerous public and private collections across Australia, including Artbank and Goulburn Regional Gallery. He graduated from the Australian National University School of Art in 2010, with a major in Painting, a minor in Screen Printing and Honours in Photomedia. He has since exhibited throughout Australia, including recent solo shows at Bus Projects (Melbourne), Galerie pompom (Sydney) and Canberra Contemporary Art Space.
He was awarded the 2013 Linden Postcard Prize by Linden Centre for Contemporary Art (Victoria) and was selected to participate in the invitation only National Artists' Self-Portrait Prize at The University of Queensland Art Museum in 2015. His work has been written about in Art Collector, Art Monthly Australasia and The Art Life.
James Lieutenant also has a collaborative practice with Kate Vassallo. You can find more information on their practice here.
ARTIST STATEMENT
My art practice takes influence from the history of painting, incorporating everything from Renaissance and Baroque periods through to Colour Fields and Gestural Abstraction. In recent years, I have devised ways to utilise painting techniques from these periods in my own processes. In practical terms, this has meant researching and pinpointing specific painterly techniques, such as Sfumato and Unione. I have then developed ways to convert these for use in my multi-layer, screen-print and painting processes.
My work has always embraced the way screen-printing can produce chance-based, gritty and abject textures, linking this to trauma in my own personal history and that of the world around me. I am attempting to combine seemingly opposing pursuits of visualising trauma, vulnerability and beauty simultaneously.
When making artworks I seek an intersection of uncertainty. Though originating from figurative source material, the final artworks I make can often be highly abstracted. The imagery I utilise can be found or created, sometimes negotiated through pen drawings or photoshopping processes. I am always seeking to heighten ambiguity. I want viewers to closely observe the surface and textures of my artworks creating an intimate connection. Equally, I aim to create a certain level of discomfort within my works, never quite landing on one aesthetic outcome and refusing to give the audience simplicity in the visual cues offered.