&Gallery is delighted to host our fourth solo exhibition dedicated to Scottish artist James Lumsden.
James Lumsden works between studios in Edinburgh and the Isle of Lewis, travelling between them on a regular basis and developing separate yet related series of work in each place. The work in the exhibition Fugal Paintings was created in the Edinburgh studio, having been developed over the past two years. These new works continue to explore concerns of light, depth and mark which have been central to his practice over the past two decades. In parallel James develops the Point Series in the studio in Lewis - although the process is similar, this series reflects a sense of place and an allusion to landscape which has come out of working on the island.
The work is found through the process of creation, previous paintings and experiments inspire new and future possibilities. In each new painting or series, Lumsden will try and develop something that worked in a preceding piece.
He aims to create open paintings which are positive and affirming. He wants to see something brought to life, struggled for, with a sense of it having its own history, and reflective of the time spent on its creation. He often uses titles related to music, such as Fugue, Contrapuntal, Resonance, etc as analogous to the process, in the hope that the viewer will respond to the paintings as they would do to a piece of music, without the need for words. The paintings are not about music but aspire to the condition of music. As with music he is hoping the work instils some sort of feeling in the viewer.
