New Collection: 'The Ireland Paintings'

Searching for inspiration, James King travelled to Ireland in Spring, joining a group of 14 artists and writers for a two-week residency on the country’s south-west coast. He spent his days working en plein air - painting the local landscape and architecture - and his evenings in conversation with his peers, sharing their creative insights and experiences.

The residency had a profound impact on James, giving him a new perspective on his work and how he creates. When he returned home to Hobart, James says his new paintings “flowed” out of him. Working from the studies and reference material he gathered in Ireland, he developed this body of work focused on the country houses he encountered there. The result is something of a love letter to these humble but resilient dwellings, built for the harsh, wind-swept Irish landscape. As though painting portraits, he endeavoured to capture the character and context of each place. 

James is best known for recreating found photographs. Having always felt a sense of obligation to reproduce these images faithfully, out of respect to their original creators, he instead embraced the challenge and opportunity to work from his own observations. By breaking free of direct translation and approaching painting in a more process-driven way, he uncovered a new sense of freedom in his work.

Still compelled to produce a small group of paintings based on old photographs, he approached them from a new perspective and carefully chose images which reflect his sentiments about current affairs. Although captured in a different time, they represent the general anxiety of modern life and the many challenges faced by people today which remain largely out of their individual control. With his trademark sense of humour, James disarms the viewer and invites them along on his search to make sense of the world through his art, the only way he knows how. All the works in this collection, whether of the figure or the landscape, reveal the deeper sense of curiosity and inspiration which James discovered across the world in Ireland’s embrace.