Artist Focus :: James Lumsden

Lumsden’s work is absorbed in the process:

My primary concern as a painter is the creation of a sense of light, colour, space, depth and feeling. I build multiple thin layers of translucent colour; layer upon layer, glaze upon mark upon glaze – concealing, revealing, action, reaction, until a sense of light and depth is achieved within the process.

Lumsden combines a historical glazing technique with modern materials. This method begins by applying 30 or more thin layers of acrylic paint and gloss medium. The artist manipulates each paint surface - stretching and moving the materials with a variety of tools across the canvas. The finished painting has its own history, which reflects the time spent on its creation.

What themes are most important to you?

I aim to create open paintings which are positive and affirming. I want 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. I often use 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. Like music I’m hoping the work instils some sort of feeling in the viewer.

What does light mean to you?

Light is central to the history of painting – for me it is the soul of painting. I am fascinated by the depiction of light historically and I am attracted to artists who use light as a primary subect in their work -  Carravagio, Vermeer, Turner, Rothko through to today with artists as varied as Joseph Marioni, Pierre Soulages and Ornulf Opdahl.  I aim to imbue my paintings with an internal light. Not a depiction of light, but a sense of light emanating from within the painting. I have a quote from the painter Ross Bleckner pinned to my studio wall which summarizes what I strive for in my work:

‘Life is short. Life goes fast. And what I really want to do in my life is to bring something new, something beautiful and something filled with light into the world. I try to think of that every day so that I can remember why I am coming to my studio.’