Installation/ Drawing

Vernissage, Saturday, September 7th. , 7pm

fridays from 3 to 7 pm, & after appointment, exhibition runs until Oktober, 18th.

Artist Talk on sunday, oktober, 6th at 4pm

James Beatham’s artistic oeuvre encompasses drawing, ceramics, painting and objects. In multi-part installations, the artist combines all these expressions in one form and brings them into communication in diverse, imaginative arrangements. He creates model-like habitats or sets which, as miniaturized urban landscapes, reveal relations that are both meaningful and mysterious. They are constructed from mysterious objects, images, personal relics, poetic allusions and have a strong narrative quality. They in turn contain art, the impossible, the fictitious, perhaps literarily imagined, the future, which echoes in the interior as if in a reflection. Beatham’s means seem free and develop through their combination. Even the scales of the objects used are not uniform, so that the resulting worlds, surreally detached from everything, like space stations, simultaneously cite mythical and real places far removed from their known location. Some things seem to stand out of context like an incongruous souvenir, absurd but equally integrated, so that associations arise quite casually. Many of these small worlds have a fountain or even a fountain in common as the central object around which everything is arranged. The fountains are of different shapes and designs and can be seen as an image of the basic conditions of human settlements, dwellings and habitats. The artist also provides lighting and light. The rippling of the water, a natural sound, also acts as a logical argument. James Beatham thus creates places that seem alive. The presence of these works appears inviting. The artist dares to create a special simultaneity here. He allows the users of the water, the people and animals, to be absent. Through this void, he draws the viewer into his spaces and allows us to experience the landscape in our contemplation. In a similar way to model landscapes, we consider how we would live in it if it were adapted to our scale. At the same time, he throws us out through profanity and the use of the absurd – he places a manquette in our view and thus shows us the design-like, the unreal, the artificial, as the outside of things. In this challenge between inside and outside, these special compositions by the artist develop a dialectical sound that, animated by this extraordinary effect, can tell stories of creatures and people quite freely.
To accompany the installations, James Beatham is showing a series of new drawings and ceramic objects.