James Winstanley

British Multidisciplinary Artist

01.03.2021  -  31.05.2021

Originally from the East Midlands but now London-based, SomoS Artist-in-Residence James Winstanley (b. 1996, Frimley, UK) adapts a multidisciplinary approach, applying a process of re-elaborating memories, often reflecting on medical experience and how artistic expression relates to it. Winstanley’s installations incorporate writing, digitally manipulated prints, and moving image works, presented as large-scale projections, or on CRT monitors.

Winstanley begins collaborating with SomoS initially in the framework of its Virtual Artist Residency, leading up to a physical artist residency, planned later this year. During this period, the artist is developing a new video installation to be presented at SomoS’ Berlin exhibition space later in 2021, titled We are leant to each other, in which he takes the performances of hospital “clown doctors” as a starting point of personal and philosophical inquiry into the relations between memory, healing, and art.

Having studied Painting at Wimbledon College of Art, Winstanley benefitted from studying traditional pictorial processes, theory, and practices. Gradually, the artist abstracted or subverted any painterly concerns, however, freeing the works of “the historical weight of canvas, wood, and paint,” instead exploring how the application of material such as media, research, digital means, conversation, to a surface or area could be developed. His digital prints and projection surfaces are often leaned against the wall, rather than placed high on a wall, eschewing painting’s hierarchical conventions.

Winstanley has developed his work mentored by artists such as Dr Zoe Mendleson and Nicholas Byrne. More recently, he has found himself returning to readings and interviews on work by American visual artist Carolyn Lazard, whose work addresses the experience of chronic illness, and multidisciplinary British artist Charlotte Prodger, which resonate with him for their attention to biographical study and re-activation of subjects regarding the self. The writings of Austrian theologist Ivan Illich are an ongoing inspiration to James. Illich’s 1974 Medical Nemesis, an expropriation of health, exploring the negative social connotations of westernized healthcare, is a book in which he could return to for methods of research, discourse, and inquiry.

“James Winstanley builds works in series generated by interests in medical record-keeping, signage and instruction, referring to how information is stored and relayed to publics and about individuals,” Dr Mendleson states, “James’ practice can be knowingly tongue-in-cheek and advises the viewer of their own susceptibilities to bigger systems and the nuances of arrangement or building consensus. James is unafraid of referencing his own experience within a wider societal framework, allowing the personal to deepen through its attachment to collective experience”

Often incorporating found footage or mementos, much of the artist’s work reflects on the workings of personal memory, incorporating experiences and observations from his own medical history. Creating research-, and experience-based pieces, analogous to the dispassionate, empirical nature of medical practices, Winstanley elevates personal ordeals into universal reflections on illness, healing, and art’s role within them.

I seek to self-administer a form of mitigation through the re-purposing of past occurrences. Alongside constantly changing, dense layers of memory, ideas surrounding public and private space, documentary or archival practice, and the medical gaze, all have a place when examining the sensitive limits between the real and the artificial.

James Winstanley, Artist’s Statement

James Winstanley received a BA (Hons) Fine Art Painting from Wimbledon College of Art in 2019. He has held solo/duo exhibitions, including As it was this morning, and yesterday, at Creekside Projects, Deptford, 2020 and GOAT/KIDNEY with selected works of Oliver Offord at Wimbledon College Of Arts, 2019; as well as multiple group shows and installations in London, notably: May-Red-Clay, at Meri&Stein Gallery, 2017; And When Do Pigeons Become Doves?, group Show at Safehouse 1, 2018; For Love Or Money, group Show at Copeland Gallery, 2019 and RELAY, group show at Fitzrovia Gallery, 2019.


James Winstanley homepage

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