TJAMES

Rouffignac & Field Studies, 2001, 2002
Reviewed by Allen R. Gee

Exhibition at: Devin Borden Hiram Butler Gallery
26 October 2002

Terrell James' most recent canvases reflect the conviction of a knowledgeable, highly skilled painter whose evolving work pushes hard against the boundaries of what we readily recognize. Her current exhibition at Devin Borden Hiram Butler demonstrates a continuing interest in using natural and organic forms to suggest physical and psychological landscapes of various kinds, without being depictive or illustrative. In the two series on display, Rouffignac and Field Studies, 2001, 2002, she offers an expressionism, both personal and abstract, that conveys new meanings and points of departure at both small and large scales.

In the Rouffignac series, nothing is imitative or superimposed. The paintings immediately engage and ask to be experienced with the totality each viewer's capacities - physical, visual, and mental. We are offered gray backgrounds and black, yellow, pink, white, orange, green, or sometimes blue lines, and curved forms. James has spoken of these forms as being from "within the body," or deriving from her history of drawing fossils and minerals. Rouffignac refers to the prehistoric caves of Rouffignac in central France. James' images might be from within a cave, as light enters at different times of day, or her paintings can inspire the experience of peering into a geode, encountering striations of reflected light, or gazing at a plentitude of ancient cave paintings. Most intriguing is how so many of James' images resembled the artwork of the Rouffignac caves, long before she had learned of their existence.

Rouffignac offers canvases with forms suggesting pictograms and neolithic art. At Rouffignac, visitors find drawings of bison, ibex, rhinoceros and mammoth dating back 130 centuries, and as in most cave art there is a central theme: the mammoth (the largest painting there, among 154 pachyderm images, is The Mammoth With The Eye). James' larger Rouffignac canvases evoke the feeling of sizeable subterranean space. The painterly surface of Cat In The Hat, its blacks and grays, are like rock and water, funnelling us in, delivering us to a cavern or another realm of the imagination. Drummer uses reds superbly to conjure vibrant emotion; one's own drummer might be within the forms, or one might be experiencing the energy of drumming. In Brute (At Play), there is a large central black form - perhaps James' own personal mammoth - and while the painting surface is rough, literally heavy, there is also an embryonic feel. A sense of movement is elicited, thwarting the conventional illusion of the painting as window. This is both technically impressive and aesthetically admirable.

These paintings begin in sight and move into thought, but always invite re-viewing and reflection. Lines and shapes can become mineral veins or deposits, runnels of water, clasts, or boulders. Depths wait to be plumbed. A temporal element can also occur-light filters down from far above at varying times of day, or in different seasons. Geological time is also suggested; in the same way that an ocean floor can become a desert plain, we can feel a journey from cave to canvas, or from the canvas to elsewhere. And since the Rouffignac paintings don't seem to end at the edge of the canvas, they inspire imaginings of scenes beyond, transforming an entire immediate wall, room, or space.

Field Studies, 2001, 2002 are oil paintings on vellum from an ongoing series, and convey the artist's changing, complicated relationship with both color and form. Beginning in 1997, the series stems from James' examinations of the suggestive (though random) splotches of color on her palettes; with these, artifacts of her artistic process seem to have become muse-like, perhaps themselves a new landscape for learning and inspiration. Time spent with this work demonstrates how the volume and shades of color can affect us, seemingly from within, and of how warm and cool colors inform one another, always unveiling mood and memory. There are strongly rendered streaks of cornflower blue, splashes of china white, strokes of mustard, shadowy grays, tangerine swirls, and dabs of Easter pink. Often seemingly indefinite or even formless in their shapes, yet strongly resolved, these gestures remind us of how the act of painting itself can bring up feeling from deep within ourselves.

The paintings of the Rouffignac series, and Field Studies, 2001, 2002, are dramatic and beautiful side-by-side, simply as pictures on the wall. But they are especially compelling because the acts of painting they chronicle, in a visual language that James brings to speech as if through our own eyes, seem performed in the "real time" of our discovery of them. Because so fraught with unguarded, undeflected new sensation, the impressions we bring away - of seeing, recognizing and feeling - are exceptional to the viewer, personally. One feels the presence of the unconscious, of the present moment, and also of history - art history, personal history, one's history of looking, in general, and at these pictures in particular. Perhaps most intriguing, James' art creates a realm that seems thoroughly sophisticated, yet innocent of self interested manipulation, a field of trust and safety for an exhilarating openness to perception and emotion. What her paintings mean, and what each canvas tells us, are - thanks to the eloquence of her brush - the conclusion of our own eyes' journey through light and color.

		back to... *Writings*
	Rouffignac & Field Studies, 2001, 2002 Reviewed by Allen R. Gee Exhibition at: Devin Borden Hiram Butler Gallery 26 October 2002 Terrell James' most recent canvases reflect the conviction of a knowledgeable, highly skilled painter whose evolving work pushes hard against the boundaries of what we readily recognize. Her current exhibition at Devin Borden Hiram Butler demonstrates a continuing interest in using natural and organic forms to suggest physical and psychological landscapes of various kinds, without being depictive or illustrative. In the two series on display, Rouffignac and Field Studies, 2001, 2002, she offers an expressionism, both personal and abstract, that conveys new meanings and points of departure at both small and large scales. In the Rouffignac series, nothing is imitative or superimposed. The paintings immediately engage and ask to be experienced with the totality each viewer's capacities - physical, visual, and mental. We are offered gray backgrounds and black, yellow, pink, white, orange, green, or sometimes blue lines, and curved forms. James has spoken of these forms as being from "within the body," or deriving from her history of drawing fossils and minerals. Rouffignac refers to the prehistoric caves of Rouffignac in central France. James' images might be from within a cave, as light enters at different times of day, or her paintings can inspire the experience of peering into a geode, encountering striations of reflected light, or gazing at a plentitude of ancient cave paintings. Most intriguing is how so many of James' images resembled the artwork of the Rouffignac caves, long before she had learned of their existence. Rouffignac offers canvases with forms suggesting pictograms and neolithic art. At Rouffignac, visitors find drawings of bison, ibex, rhinoceros and mammoth dating back 130 centuries, and as in most cave art there is a central theme: the mammoth (the largest painting there, among 154 pachyderm images, is The Mammoth With The Eye). James' larger Rouffignac canvases evoke the feeling of sizeable subterranean space. The painterly surface of Cat In The Hat, its blacks and grays, are like rock and water, funnelling us in, delivering us to a cavern or another realm of the imagination. Drummer uses reds superbly to conjure vibrant emotion; one's own drummer might be within the forms, or one might be experiencing the energy of drumming. In Brute (At Play), there is a large central black form - perhaps James' own personal mammoth - and while the painting surface is rough, literally heavy, there is also an embryonic feel. A sense of movement is elicited, thwarting the conventional illusion of the painting as window. This is both technically impressive and aesthetically admirable. These paintings begin in sight and move into thought, but always invite re-viewing and reflection. Lines and shapes can become mineral veins or deposits, runnels of water, clasts, or boulders. Depths wait to be plumbed. A temporal element can also occur-light filters down from far above at varying times of day, or in different seasons. Geological time is also suggested; in the same way that an ocean floor can become a desert plain, we can feel a journey from cave to canvas, or from the canvas to elsewhere. And since the Rouffignac paintings don't seem to end at the edge of the canvas, they inspire imaginings of scenes beyond, transforming an entire immediate wall, room, or space. Field Studies, 2001, 2002 are oil paintings on vellum from an ongoing series, and convey the artist's changing, complicated relationship with both color and form. Beginning in 1997, the series stems from James' examinations of the suggestive (though random) splotches of color on her palettes; with these, artifacts of her artistic process seem to have become muse-like, perhaps themselves a new landscape for learning and inspiration. Time spent with this work demonstrates how the volume and shades of color can affect us, seemingly from within, and of how warm and cool colors inform one another, always unveiling mood and memory. There are strongly rendered streaks of cornflower blue, splashes of china white, strokes of mustard, shadowy grays, tangerine swirls, and dabs of Easter pink. Often seemingly indefinite or even formless in their shapes, yet strongly resolved, these gestures remind us of how the act of painting itself can bring up feeling from deep within ourselves. The paintings of the Rouffignac series, and Field Studies, 2001, 2002, are dramatic and beautiful side-by-side, simply as pictures on the wall. But they are especially compelling because the acts of painting they chronicle, in a visual language that James brings to speech as if through our own eyes, seem performed in the "real time" of our discovery of them. Because so fraught with unguarded, undeflected new sensation, the impressions we bring away - of seeing, recognizing and feeling - are exceptional to the viewer, personally. One feels the presence of the unconscious, of the present moment, and also of history - art history, personal history, one's history of looking, in general, and at these pictures in particular. Perhaps most intriguing, James' art creates a realm that seems thoroughly sophisticated, yet innocent of self interested manipulation, a field of trust and safety for an exhilarating openness to perception and emotion. What her paintings mean, and what each canvas tells us, are - thanks to the eloquence of her brush - the conclusion of our own eyes' journey through light and color.