CURVE-BASED SYNTAX: James Capper

The ROTARY Paintings, imitating the ‘circle’ of the Pattern Alphabet, form an ongoing body of work which Capper has been developing since the Covid pandemic. In deep shades of red, purple, white, and golden yellow, these interlocking spheres compose a repetition of circles on the page, alternately evocative of planetary rings and the trancelike spin of a hypnotist’s wheel. They were created using his HYDRAPAINTER - a studio-fabricated machine consisting of a square table with a hydraulic motor - which rotates an arm in order to apply marine paint via a roller in an endless loop over the surface of the paper. Like Robert Rauschenberg, Capper sees his artistic endeavor as being a reporter of his time as well as a sculptor. Each painting is named after a confiscated Russian super yacht - a reflection of the current geopolitical situation and the West’s resolve following the invasion of Ukraine.

In the back of the gallery hang the SPECKLED Paintings. Created using the recently developed SPECKLER machine, these works are designed to provoke an ‘explosion’ in the Pattern Alphabet. Capper’s meditations on the current geopolitical situation take shape through abstraction, in patterns evocative of instability and violence. The machine rains down paint in bright, industrial shades, producing volatile works that resemble a volcanic eruption. In their dot-like formation, the patterns also suggest a mass of data points - a subtle evocation of the personal information being collected by technology companies and used by governments, often without our knowledge or permission.