Terrell James is an established Texan artist represented by galleries in the US and the UK. Producing both intimate canvases and vigorous mural-scale works in oil, James’ works have been in over fifty solo exhibitions across the world, including a museum exhibition in the Mobile Museum of Art, Alabama in 2022. Her paintings are included in numerous public collections including the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Cadogan are delighted to be showing James’ new body of work in Miart 2023.
Entitled Trust, this new body of work marks a development in James’ practice, with a more graphic linear approach than previous works. Her paintings are interpretations of landscapes, internal and external. The organic shapes of her works allude directly to their origins in plants, animals, fossils and glaciers, but are also referenced in some of her titles; ‘Cleft’, ‘Isla’ and ‘Shell Scented’. James’ expressions of her ‘familiar obsessions’ flow automatically and intuitively from the subconscious as her works unfold. Other works only resolve once completed, evoking a sense of place not intentionally designed but introduced by subconscious memory and found through interaction with the viewer. All of these paintings draw on her wealth of reference points in nature and personal experience but also in art and poetry.
“Imagery is abstracted from particular places, or objects I have seen. I am trying to paint, draw and sculpt the essence of my experience, to share it in paint through light and color" Terrell James
As an abstract female artist working in Texas since the late 1970s, Terrell has forged a distinctive style and challenged her practice in the face of adversity. James has continuously sought unfamiliar environments in which to paint. In the past she has maintained temporary studio spaces in Mexico, Berlin and across the US. Cadogan Gallery has represented Terrell James since 2015 and has shown three solo exhibitions in London, as well as a monumental site specific work on paper in our exhibition space in Hampshire. Her exhibition at Miart will be followed by a solo show in London in May 2023.
