Thyme James holds an interdisciplinary practice based in expanded painting. She describes it as such as opposed to multi-disciplinary because the mediums are often not isolated, either being combined in the creation of the piece or stemming from conceptual ideas through the process of another medium. Thyme incorporates media including painting, drawing, printmaking, performance, and video art. Her interest lies in the human condition, the body, and materiality, exploring a range of themes from inclusivity, intimacy and connection, to perception and the everyday.
Now based in Glasgow, Thyme grew up in a village in Cornwall. She tells us; “Despite being from a working class family I was fortunate that our household is culturally vibrant, there’s art on every wall, music from all decades and corners of the world playing daily, and exposure to cinema. I was told my mother used to give me a pencil and some paper to shut me up when I was very young and, being an introverted person, I spent my childhood and teenage years being more than content sitting alone to draw for hours – looking back it was inevitable that I would pursue a career in the creative arts.”
She left school after her GCSEs to study Art & Design at Plymouth College of Art, and then went on to the Glasgow School of Art where she gained her BA(hons) in Fine Art Painting and Printmaking. Whilst there Thyme also had the opportunity to study at The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna on exchange, and received The RGI Graduate Award for her degree show from The Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts.
When the pandemic hit in 2020, Thyme describes is as “a blessing in disguise”. Furloughed from her job in hospitality which was previously taking up most of her time, she had the time to rekindle her creative practice, apply for a range of opportunities, and an urgency to learn to support herself from her work. When her work place finally reopened Thyme knew she needed to find a balance between working in the bar and her own practice. However, as her hours subsequently crept up again, she ended up quitting when she hadn’t been to the studio for over a month. “It’s sad to think that without the pandemic affording me time to consider the importance of my practice and wellbeing, I probably wouldn’t have made this decision and be working even longer hours today,” says the artist.
Since then it’s been a wild uphill journey for Thyme; she’s been working freelance as a gallery technician and exhibitions coordinator in conjunction with her practice. She comments; “My creative output is accelerating every week, I think the last time I made this much was at the start of my studies.”
Thyme’s work commonly features a lot of repeated imagery and motifs, and she often works from the same source material innumerable times, in everything from gouache or pencil, to physical actions. “A lot of the time I’ll have a painting in my head and it turns out to be a performance to camera, or an animation that’s actually a monotype. I think it’s about finding the element of human/material interaction,” states Thyme. She continues; “The emphasis of printmaking is in itself a repetitive mode of production, and I often wonder if this is part of its allure for me”.
“I believe print is one of the most accessible fields in art, not only in regards to its relative affordability, but because print is in every aspect of day to day life in the contemporary western world. We pass by many forms of print day to day, from newspapers, posters and billboards, to digital imagery and the online domain, and as such everyone has a shared base and reference point.”
Thyme’s artworks reflect everything from lived experience or the experience of her peers, to reading (she reads a lot of philosophy, feminism, queer theory, and critical theory). Memory and found imagery are currently major points of specific inspiration.
In 2021 Thyme was a participating artist for Perform/Print; a collaborative project exploring the intersection of performance and printmaking. With an emphasis on thinking through making/doing, they met via zoom regularly for a period of 2-3 months, having discussions around topics such as ephemerality, interaction, and repetition before exploring ideas through different exercises and actions together. Each of the collaborators then created a small body of work independently and contributed to a visual toolkit to provide the basis for others to get involved and explore the intersection of performance and print themselves.
Solor Solus from Thyme James on Vimeo.
Printmaking is becoming an increasingly important aspect of her practice since having graduated. She comments; “Even when it’s not the final work, print helps me develop ideas, explore colour and form, and experiment with perception”. Subsequently, Thyme is hoping to expand on this further through further training in printmaking, either through intaglio or lithography workshops or masters studies.
Earlier this year Thyme was awarded an individual artist grant from the Hope Scott Trust to support the development of new work exploring intimacy, memory, and isolation. She will be showing this new work in my first proper solo show at Saltspace Gallery in Glasgow this October.
www.thymejames.com
@coat.myself.in.paint
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