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Spraygraphic Interview with Artist James Roper
By Spraygraphic | August 8, 2008
Spraygraphic Interview with James Roper
SG: Please tell us about yourself?
JR: 25 years old. 5ft 9in tall. Brown hair. Grey eyes. I’m pretty boring, hopefully my artwork makes up for that.
SG: Where do you currently live and work?
JR: Manchester, England
SG: What mediums do you work with?
JR: I mostly paint with acrylics but I try my hand at anything.
SG: Describe your working process when creating a new work.
JR: I trawl through thousands of images on the Internet to find parts I can cut out and use in my work. I may also take photos myself and find images in magazines or stills from films. I collage together these parts on Photoshop, changing colour and form to produce a composition. I then project and draw this onto a canvas and using the composition as an approximate guide as I paint I add and change things where appropriate.
SG: What kind of things do you do when you get blocked or find it hard to create something?
JR: I never get a block but I do tend to get very jaded by my own work so I’m constantly pushing myself. If I’m not happy with how a composition is forming, I keep pushing it, starting from scratch if it means getting it right.
SG: Where are you currently finding your inspiration?
JR: The Internet, human anatomy, cathedral architecture, pornography, anime and weird hentai, car crashes, baroque sculpture and Christian iconography, comics, action films and other artists work.
SG: Can you please tell us about your painting, Cytherea explicates the enfolded.
JR: It was an attempt to break away from the series of paintings called Hypermass, in which I appropriated imagery only from anime and manga. What I learned from producing that piece as well as the next piece I did ‘Conception of the unfolding implicate’, informs my new work today. I wanted to add a slight narrative to my work, in ‘Cytherea’ I wanted to portray the idea of restraint and release. Although I think I over did it on the colours. I’ve had a lot of people say they love the colour in it but throwing every colour in the rainbow at a piece of work is easy and I now see it as a cop out. It takes a lot more effort to restrict the palette.
SG: Can you please tell us a little about your Rapture series.
JR: Again like ‘Cytherea’ it deals with the idea of release. The ‘Rapture’ is a Christian belief that at some future date all true Christians will ascend to heaven. In a lot of religions you get this idea of release from the material to the spiritual as if there is a pure soul trapped in a filthy body. There is a small ivory sculpture in the Manchester City Gallery depicting a Buddhist monk pulling the skin away from his head to reveal his enlightened self beneath, this is analogous to the modern day imagery in comic books of the way Clark Kent, a normal man, sheds his clothes to become a Super man. In the same way in the Rapture series I used porn stars to symbolise the shedding of a ‘filthy’ skin to reveal a ‘purity’ beneath. Spiritual ecstasy has often been likened to sexual release, The Ecstasy of St. Teresa by Bernini is often cited as an example of this in art.
SG: Where has your work been seen?
JR: Manchester. London. Miami. L.A. (and everywhere else via the Internet)
SG: Where will it be seen next?
JR: I have work in a group show at Forster Gallery in London and again in a solo show there in November.
SG: What is your dream art assignment?
JR: I don’t really like being assigned anything, I’ve always hated working to briefs. Just give me loads of money to spend on a piece of work and I’m sure I’ll think of something.
SG: What is your favorite color?
JR: Sky blue
SG: Who is your favorite artist? And Why?
JR: I can’t pick one out, here’s a top ten.
Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Hans Bellmer, Francis Bacon, Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Takashi Murakami, Matthew Barney, Inka Essenhigh
SG: What book/magazine are you reading this week?
JR: I always have a couple of books on the go:
JR: Two Zen Classics: Mumonkan and Hekiganroku, Body language for dummies, The Journal of Hildegard of Bingen: A Novel
SG: Ever do a self portrait? Where is it now?
JR: Everything I produce is a self portrait. As for the less philosophical answer, yes, I think I did one or two in high school.
SG: Where is your favorite place to hang out?
JR: Anywhere where I’m asleep, I’m far too busy at the moment.
SG: Any final words of advice?
JR: To paraphrase the words of both a Zen teacher and a famous sports shoe based company: Stop making excuses and just do it.
Art: 1. Ubermensch, 2. Rapture, 3. Tank Theory T-shirts, 4. Grafuck, 5. Standpoint Conversion, 6. Conception of the Unfolding Implicate, 7. Cytherea explicates the enfolded, 8. Devotion, (1000 Origami Flowers), 9. Exit Vehicle, 10. Fallout
Topics: Artist Interviews, Graphic Design, International-Art |
