James Turner is a Birmingham-based artist and printmaker, Lecturer, and Technician. Since finishing his Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art at Birmingham City University in 2013, James has been a Fine Art Technician and Lecturer in Printmaking . In 2015, he was part of New Arts West Midlands, and ever since has been exhibiting in Birmingham and the rest of the UK.
In 2018, James started his Master’s in Multi-Disciplinary Printmaking at the University of West England, which he completed in 2021. Most recently he launched Stirchley Printworks; a south Birmingham printmaking studio and artist space.
Jame’s predominate medium of choice is screen printing. He describes; “The immediacy, accessibility, and graphic nature drew me to it”. He also prints digitally, and as his work largely focuses on the relationship between 2D and 3D and sculpture, his practice sometimes extends to sculpting and casting.
“My research and practice largely focuses on the relationship between 2D and 3D, public art and its politics, with particular interest in the 1946 New Towns Act and the planning of where I was born Harlow Town and its sculpture collection/program.”
Harlow Art Trust, formed in 1953, set out with a mission to beautify the post-war new town of Harlow, Essex by commissioning and siting sculpture across its public spaces, with an uncompromising belief that art should be part of the social fabric of everyday life and owned by the people who live and work around it.
With funding constantly being cut to our public services, James looks back at the boom in post-war spending on public amenities, including public art, and the goals of artists, architects, and politicians and their belief in the importance of access to public art; “If public art becomes a thing of the past, viewers and artists alike are likely to find it in unlikely places”.
The printmaker’s latest works are an attempt to find interesting sculptural forms in the everyday, showing scenes or objects boldly backlit with block colour to soften or frame, extenuating what James finds interesting and posing the question: is this public art?
Each image is the result of a deliberate act. For example; the crushing and binding of the cardboard by shop workers to make the transportation of the material easier, or the person or persons pushing over traffic cones in the streets. James says; “I see myself as collaborating with these unknowing (and unknown) artists to record their public performances and installations.”
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