Deviants, dimwits & distorted dames: The hyperreal pessimistic pop portraits of Nathan James

06.23.2020
03:47 pm
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Art
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Nathan James

Artist Nathan James’ distorted portrait of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.

“I once read a thing from the liner notes of the Ramones album, Rocket To Russia. The author wrote that the genius of the band was, with songs like “Rockaway Beach,” their ability to make celebratory pop anthems by inverting rotten, nasty elements from their lives that were actually quite horrible in reality. With those paintings, I’m trying to explore just that.”

—artist Nathan James on defining the term “Pessimistic Pop.”

When London-based artist Nathan James was recuperating from serious back surgery in 2010, he used the downtime to rethink his artistic style. These ideas would be fully realized in his 2013 series “Creepshow.” Described by James as focusing on the lives of the “underclass, failures, perverts and slackers” instead of “beautiful, successful people,” not one of the galleries James was working with were interested in showing his evolved work. He was summarily dropped by his main dealer in London, and a German gallery that had offered to host a solo show stopped responding to his emails. In an interview from 2013, James revealed that in addition to a rather poor academic performance in high school and college, he also failed 11th and 12th-grade art. Mostly because he was too stoned to show up or was so stoned when he did show up, he learned little to nothing. Well, I’m sure that James’ high school art teacher Ms. Balford would be pleased to know the work of her former slacker/stoner student has been compared to George Condo. Condo is credited with the creation of the term Artificial Realism as well as the term “psychological cubism.” Artificial realism as defined by Condo is the realistic representation of that which is artificial,” which is how he described his unique blend of American pop art with traditional European Old Master style of painting. This is also very much in line with the kind of art Nathan James creates.

Many reoccurring themes run through James’ paintings, from glossy pin-ups to cartoon characters, including the curious inclusion of Mickey Mouse’s white-gloved hand. The appearance of Mickey’s hand in James’ work has caused fans to speculate perhaps, as a child, something bad went down between Nathan and the world’s most famous cartoon mouse. When dissecting James’ more current work, the artist has indicated he was inspired by personal experience pertaining to “co-dependence, jealousy, disappointment, and death,” themes we’re are all likely acquainted with, whether we care to acknowledge it or not. James’ also works in grim economic narratives in his paintings, which he pulls from his youth growing up in Kirkland Lake in Ontario, Canada witnessing the economy take a nosedive after the steel industry declined and eventually collapsed. This left the future artist free to explore the empty factories, now filled with their fair share of nefarious folks, and those left behind trying to figure out their bleak-looking futures. Another reason James’ work switched gears was in part inspired by the global financial crisis (GFC) of 2007-2008 and his realization that continuing on with his pop-art painting of Gil Elvgren-style pin-ups and such no longer reflected any kind of reality. If any of this sounds all too close to home right now, good. Keep on keeping your eyes open.

In 2016 James’ held his first U.S. solo show “Dark Matter” at the Corey Helford Gallery in Los Angeles. The show featured works from his “Creepshow” series as well as another new series called “Faceless.” James posted a few new images on his Instagram in May, so hopefully, we’ll be seeing more from him as, thematically, the shit-show that is 2020 seems like a grim gift, inspiration-wise, for James. A girl can dream!