Richard James assemblages
Introduced by
Robert Macfarlane goldmark
Price ÂŁ10
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Richard James assemblages
assemblages
Robert Macfarlane
Richard James
goldmark 2016
Migratory 1 Mind that swan? The whooper we found neck slack on the turf, head pointing north like a way-sign, how you stooped and opened its wing? I paid scant heed to your naming of parts: coverts, ulna, primaries being scunnert with the place, its gales and sea-roar – but this wing – this was a proclamation! The wind-fit, quartz-bright power of the thing! A radiant gate one could open and slip through... We dragged the swan to the lee of an old dyke tucked it in neat, a white stone, then trudged up out of the glen. At the ridge again, we got clouted properly, staggered on, half elated, half scared.
Kathleen Jamie The Bonniest Companie Picador Poetry
Bone Atlas Chart 31
Richard James assemblages I first encountered the work of Richard James six autumns ago, at a period of my life when I was travelling frequently to the Outer Hebrides and the north-western seaboard of mainland Scotland. That year I sailed overnight in an old open boat from the Butt of Lewis up to Sula Sgeir – the Gannet Rock – forty miles out into the North Atlantic. My skipper on that journey, Ian Stephen, was a navigator of exquisite precision. To plot our course on the charts he used a pair of brass dividers with curved handles, that reminded me of the skull of a godwit. The sky on the night we sailed was cloudless. Jupiter blazed in the east. A phosphorescent wake unfurled behind us. As our destination lay due north, our navigation was celestial and simple: keep the North Star steady between halyard and spar. Seeing Richard’s exquisite work for the first time shortly after that journey, then, I was struck both by its eeriness and its familiarity. The obsessive nature of his collecting and arranging; his fascination with star-charts, with birds and whales, with littorals, with wrack and wreck, with navigation and orientation – these made immediate sense to me. I admired, too, the assembly of precedents that his cabinets invoked: the reliquary (sacred), the wunderkammer (secular),
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Pages 8 - 24 omitted
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Extrasolar (Beyond the Sun)
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Astronomy of the Seashore
Leading Lights 270°
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Pages 31 - 45 omitted
Evangelical Songsters
Makers of the Starry Sky (Days of Devotion)
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Notes Astronomy of the Seashore
between Dun and Stac Levenish. A right hand, symbol of God’s
2013, 630 x 650 x 50 mm (open)
blessing, holds a gull hatching from a mussel shell.
Seabird Mandibles, Seal Pup Scapula & Whiskers, Bird Bone, Roots, Porpoise Vertebrae & Teeth, Crab Remains, Small Wasp Nest,
Birds and the Flowering Sea (Articles of Belief)
Bitumen, Seabird Quills, Other Found Objects.
2014, 860 x 440 x 65 mm
Extending thousands of kilometres into space, the Earth’s magnetic
Skull, Seabird Remains, Bible Chapters, Limpet Shells, Crushed
field encloses the planet in a protective shield. It is believed that birds may be able to ‘see’ electromagnetic fields, and so use the changes
Wild Flowers, Porpoise Vertebra, Laboratory Glass, Fulmar Eggs and Hebridean Rock, Other Found Objects.
they detect to navigate a path and determine their position on long
An object of worship made for an isolated ascetic in search of an ideal
migrations around the globe.
life. A hybrid belief system where accepted objects of devotion have
At the Borders of the Known World
harsh environments. The limpets fixed to the Bible pages trace slow
become encrusted and returned to nature through long exposures to 2016, 540 x 200 x 70 mm
trails over the words. How many times have these psalms been sung
Grey Heron Remains, Metal Sheet, Small Bird Remains, Astrolabe
or the chapters read?
Model, Other Found Objects. A processional object for protection and guidance through new world landscapes.The astrolabe is a very ancient astronomical computer for solving problems relating to time and the position of the Sun and stars in the sky.
Birsay Sound 2014, 700 x 490 x 50 mm Sea Urchin Fragments, Guillemot Egg, Sheep Fleece, Sand, Sea Water, Raven Feather, Book of Common Prayer, Crab Remains Shells, Seal Teeth & Jaw, Fishing Line & Horsehair, Flowers, Meadow
Bear North at the Far West
Pipit Skull, Other Found Objects.
2014, 580 x 580 x 65 mm
These objects were collected from the Sound and Brough of Birsay
Seal Scapula, Songbird Remains, Deep Sky Star Atlas, Puffin Skull,
on Orkney while crossing the causeway at low tide. The Brough is an
Egg Remains, Carbon, Shrew Skeleton, Root, Crow Talons, Porpoise
ancient place of continuous settlement.
Tooth, Other Found Objects. The egg is a symbolic representation of the Universe, the origin and secret of being. Its hidden and mysterious inner workings conceal the miraculous development of life. The young will hatch and begin the long migration north, guided by the pole star in its constellation Ursa Minor - a celestial bearing to a common destination.
Bone Atlas: Chart 31 2014, 680 x 540 x 65 mm Oystercatcher Skulls, Seal Pelvis, Laboratory Glass, Deep Sky Star Atlas, Horsehair, Shell Sand, Crab Remains, Shells, Bird Remains, Other Found Objects. Pages from a star atlas showing the constellation Gemini. Twin
Between Dun and Stac Levenish
oystercatcher skulls and other remains form the asterism. All life is
2007, 630 x 1190 x 80 mm
made from elements formed from collapsed stars – everything is
Approaching Hirta, the main island of the St Kilda archipelago, sailing
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connected.
Bone Atlas: Chart 53
Extrasolar (Beyond the Sun)
2014, 680 x 540 x 65 mm
2011, 320 x 840 x 45 mm (open)
Cow and Sheep Jaw Bones, Guillemot Egg Remains, Manx Shearwater Skull, Small Bird Remains, Root, Deep Sky Star Atlas, Horsehair, Butterfly & Moth, Other Found Objects.
Beyond the immediate Solar System – moving out past galaxies and on to the outer edges of the Universe where the Atlas of mythology, symbol of strength and endurance, holds the celestial sphere of
Pages from a star atlas showing the constellation Taurus. A cow’s
ancient astronomy on his shoulders.The Atlas is the topmost cervical
jawbone and other remains form the asterism. All life is made from
vertebra of the spine and supports the skull.
elements formed from collapsed stars – everything is connected.
Ex-Voto (56°19’N 5°58’W) Book of Saints & Martyrs 2013, 630 x 450 x 140 mm (open) Bird, Rabbit & Rat Skulls, Scallop Shell, Crab & Seal Claws, Bird Bone & Talons, Bitumen, Flowers, Metal Leaf, Thorns, Hedgehog Spines, Goose Egg, Other Found Objects.
2008, 1170 x 290 x 80 mm A votive offering for Carsaig Bay (Mull) using found material from the site. Ex-voto are made in gratitude or devotion and left in a sacred place for ritual purpose.
A small, portable altarpiece constructed for the use of an individual
Eynhallow Sound (Broch of Gurness)
who would daily sing, or recite verse, to honour the souls of its
2014, 720 x 570 x 70 mm
donors.
Sea Urchin Test, Spines and Aristotle’s Lantern, Cormorant, Greylag Goose and Oystercatcher Skulls, Seabird Remains.
Brother/Sister Kin 2015, 760 x 240 x 130 mm Driftwood, Seal Claws & Tooth, Rabbit Skulls, Crab Remains, Herring Gull Skull, Seaweed, Limpet & Mussel Shells, Soay Sheep Vertebra, Egg, Other Found Objects.
These seabird skulls were collected from the Sands of Evie, on the edge of Eynhallow Sound. The broken sea urchin was recovered from the shore below the Broch of Gurness (complex Atlantic Roundhouse), Orkney.
A kinship group mortuary vessel/totem housing the remains of extinct
Here Comes Your Old Navigator Again
life recovered from Western Scotland.
2015, 420 x 930 x 45 mm (open) Found objects collected from North Rona: Puffin Remain, Small Fish
Evangelical Songsters
and Fish Bones, Grey Seal Pup Remains, Leach’s Petrel Bones,
2015, 680 x 990 x 45 mm
Seasalt (North Atlantic), Sheep Wool, Shell Sand ,Rock Samples,
Small Bird Remains, Bird Photographs, Egg Remains, Seal Claws,
Photographs, Star Charts.
Horsehair, Insect Remains, Star Atlas, Thorns, Other Found Objects.
The peninsulas of Fianuis and Sceapull on the outlying island of North
A broad section of the northern celestial sphere rises from the island
Rona. Images of three seabirds symbolically encapsulate notions of
landscapes of western Scotland. As the Earth spins on its axis, relics
transcendence and rebirth, and are combined with the collected
of divinities appear to rotate around the fixed point of the pole star.
evidence of past island lives.
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Leading Lights 270°
Ring of Brodgar and the Salt Knowe
2015, 295 x 490 x 65 mm (open)
2013, 350 x 1440 x 65 mm (open)
Seabird Remains (St Kilda), Seal Tooth, Soay Sheep Wool, Driftwood
Gannet and Cormorant Skulls, Flowers, Seaweed, Seal Teeth,
Block, Nautical Chart, Photographs, Star Atlas, Other Found Objects.
Heather, Stone Fragments, Horsehair, Meadow Pipit Leg, Other
An icon to navigation using collected objects from St. Kilda. A pair of beacons, or ‘seamarks’, give a position fix and indicate safe passage
Found Objects. The stone circle and three Neolithic mounds. An Orkney landscape.
for vessels passing Stac Levenish and sailing into Village Bay on the main island of Hirta.
Settlement Excavation 2015, 545 x 460 x 65 mm
Makers of the Starry Sky (Days of Devotion)
Small Rodent Remains, Laboratory Glass, Fulmar Egg Remains,
2011, 360 x 720 x 35 mm (open)
Sheep Wool, Other Found Objects.
Much of my work makes strong use of astronomical association: an
The excavation of a ritual site. A star group is revealed on the inside of
attempt to recognize the greater mystery inherent in the
a predated fulmar egg. The wire bisects the stars in a suggestion of
commonplace fragments of exhausted life.
astronomical alignment. The talon locating the site on Earth and the wishbone from a storm petrel navigating hope into the void. The glass
Messier Object 111 & 112
vials hold 206 bones, the number found in the modern human body.
2012, 420 x 460 x 70 mm It appeared below the southern fish and above the equator, crossed the equator, passed through Aquarius and the tail of Capricornus, where it ceased its apparition in the rays of the Sun. Charles Messier 1730 - 1817 Observation of Comet Halley in 1759 taken from his ‘Notes on my Comets’.
Sula Alba (Suffer this Bird to Fall to Earth) 2014, 860 x 440 x 65 mm Gannet Remains, Hebridean Sands, Driftwood, Fulmar & Goose Eggs, Sheep Fleece, Laboratory Glass, Fish Vertebrae, Other Found Objects. The Scottish goose, or northern gannet, transitioning between worlds
Path of the Old Sun
as – from heights of one hundred feet – it plunges through the ocean
2014, 410 x 770 x 100 mm (open)
surface, passing continually between realms in a repeated ritual of
Charcoal, Star Atlas, Rock Samples, Sea Water, Iron Filings, Frogs,
baptism and rebirth.
Bird and Crab Remains, Old Testament Verse, Ash, Insects, Metal
Sun Chariot (after Trundholm)
Leaf. The Sun will make an altar of the Earth. It is slowly expanding and brightening and will eventually become a red giant. The Earth will be engulfed, the oceans evaporated and life destroyed, before the Sun itself then collapses into a white dwarf.
2013 - 2014, 630 x 1020 x 70 mm Pony Jaw (Eriskay), Dolphin & Seal Rib, Seabird Bone, Redshank Skull, Sheep Jaws, Seal Claw, Crab Remains, Seabird Egg Fragments, Hedgehog Spines, Other Found Objects. During a period of ‘solar minimum’, a procession of New Ice Age figures begin their migration to a new star.
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The Divine Atlantic
The Whole of What Turns
2015, 535 x 425 x 95 mm (open)
2015, 160 x 280 mm
Gannet and Kestrel Skulls, Black-Backed Gull Skull, Storm Petrel
Raptor Skull, Fulmar Egg, Wild Flowers, Limpet Shells, Other Found
Bones, Wild Flowers and Lichen, Tree and Root, Seabird Remains,
Objects.
Moths and Butterflies, North Atlantic Sea Water, Star Atlas, Porpoise Teeth, Other Found Objects.
An astronomical model. A diverse collection of found objects constitutes an imagined Oort cloud defining the cosmographical
A reliquary for the North Atlantic. The recesses hold the saint-like
boundary of the Solar System and the limits of the Sun‘s gravitational
remains of a herring gull and northern gannet, their headdresses
influence. It is from this cloud that weakly orbiting objects become
adorned with crescent moons, stars and flowers. An inverted tree at
dislodged to fall towards the inner Solar System as comets.
the equator has its roots amongst the northern constellations. The glass vial of Atlantic seawater is substitute for a flame, to which moths
These Two Important Mysteries
and butterflies are repeatedly drawn.
2015, 300 x 170 mm
The English Hymnal (Books II and IV)
Flowers, Ptolemaic Solar System Map, Other Found Objects.
Fulmar Egg, Blackbird Skulls, Large Bird Ilium, Tail Feathers, Wild 2007, 710 x 610 x 95 mm Mistletoe, Poppy and Other Flowers, Butterflies and Moths, Finch Wings and Legs, Small Bird Skulls and Bones, Insects, Crow’s Foot, Shrew, Hare’s Whiskers, Feathers, Other Found Objects.
The contemplation of the sacred mysteries will include the development of personal theories; these will be undertaken in the knowledge that the sacred can never be fully understood.
Two of the eight books of hymns taken from a copy of the English
Wheel the Wide Realm
Hymnal. Each hymn is individually combined with collected natural
2015, 720 x 720 x 65 mm
objects, then burnt in a glass vial and sealed with resin to form a
Gull Wings, Manx Shearwater Skull, Seabird Remains, Goose Eggs,
natural relic.
Photograph (Stenness, Orkney), Water from Loch of Stenness and Harray, Hairbells and Scabious, Crab Remains, Other Found Objects.
The Flood 2010, 620 x 620 x 70 mm
A sky bearer spans a width of Heaven above the Stones of Stenness in the Orkney Islands – and between the waters of Loch Harray and
The Earth enclosed by the field of Heaven. Two surviving birds fly over
Loch Stenness, the bodies of water that enclose the ancient henge.
the receded waters. The raven, first to leave the Ark, is a symbol of
Hemispheres of egg-like star clusters and distant galaxies trail from
solitude and protector of prophets.
the birds tail and crown. Earthbound stilted figures rise up to be nearer Heaven.
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Goldmark Gallery 14 Orange Street Uppingham Rutland LE15 9SQ 01572 821424 goldmarkart.com Text © Robert Macfarlane 2016 Poem © Kathleen Jamie Photographs © Richard James & Jay Goldmark Design Porter/Goldmark ISBN 978-1-909167-34-6 May 2016
Ex-Voto (56°19’N 5°58’W)
Born 1963
Northampton, East Midlands
Education 1980-84
2005
Nottingham Hart Gallery, Christmas Exhibition
2005
ArtLondon, Chelsea
2001
Scottish Connections, Field Dalling Gallery, Norfolk
2001
Artist Group, Yarrow Gallery, Oundle
Studied at the University of Northampton
2001
Dolby Gallery, Oundle
Lives and works in Oundle, Northamptonshire
2000
Scottish Connections, Field Dalling Gallery, Norfolk
2000
Arthouse Gallery, Peterborough
Solo Exhibitions
2000
Show Case, East Midlands Arts Council, Loughborough
2012
Devotionals, Hart Gallery, London
2000
Open Cube, Green Box Studio, Norfolk
2010
Offshore, Hart Gallery, London
1999
Arthouse 2, City Art Gallery, Peterborough
2008
Transit, Hart Gallery, London
1996
Alfred East Gallery, Kettering
2006
Uranometria, Hart Gallery, London
1995
Central Art Gallery, Peterborough
2004
Edgelands, Hart Gallery, London
Group Exhibitions 2014
1994
Guildhall Art Gallery, Northampton
1994
Innovation, City Art Gallery, Leicester
1993
Heffer Gallery, Cambridge
Unsung, Framers Gallery, London
2008
Timeless, Riverhouse Gallery, Walton on Thames
Collections
2007
London Art Fair, Islington
University of London
2006
London Art Fair, Islington
Work in private collections in the UK and US
goldmark Uppingham Rutland