JAMES MAY.

poem made from random words taken from Jean Baudrillards the transparency of evil.

Rules.

Every 21st word, every other page, until bored. 

In liberation of the

every liberated orgy

some us the 

reduplication thing

all to power! 

the stage a physicists 

it's the value

value by proportion 

has approaches could own in 

metaphor

total economics

in self to water 

it's of is diluted 

not affairs artistic.

LIBERATION! 

has power negotiating. 

                         The kiss

kiss, snog , make - out , make - up , fall in love , fall out of love , heart break.

                                                      The girl

My work is centred around language and text, and the categories they create, I construct narratives that seem to have human character from inane objects - a paper chain becomes a control freak, a toilet brush holder becomes a shy boyfriend losing his way in a relationship - texts are teased until they become a  ‘humanised abstraction’ and then are read as ‘I’ the artist, my tone becoming the centre for any number of characters.

 

The images come separately, I take an image or a drawing that I already feel has some currency, such as a news item or piece of history, then highlight the parts I feel are important with shapes, the rest of the image is faded away until it becomes a block colour, by doing this I simultaneously highlight a sub text to the narrative, and refuse to give a face or place to the story I have developed, under lining it’s fiction.

 

By exploiting the tension between the narrative and an abstract image I try to create a gap in which the viewer to fall and become apart of the work, and hopefully question the typical engagement a viewer might have with a ‘narrator’ or ‘creator’, making clear the separation between art/media/television/design.

 

I often ask the viewer questions ‘Do you find this valuable?’ ‘What is my opinion worth?’ ‘How much do you want for me?’ in order to share my vulnerability and to reduce the size of the pedestal between ‘artist’ and ‘the public’ in my work I am constantly reminding the viewer of the normality of my existence and artists existence and the fiction that is any kind of art ‘market’

 

My text is sometimes used in other forms - bunting of popular song lyrics, and placards of other people’s text messages - by allowing the viewer to engage with these objects and photographing this scene they become the missing image to the text, they become the character the story and a narrative I am yet to write, they are part of this sense of ‘creation’ of an art object, I aim for them to become as pedestaled as the ‘Art’. This allows space for the boundaries between artist and viewer, narrator and reader, self and other and between relationships and closure to be re addressed.

 

 

 

Hey, I need you to promise me something, and you can’t tell anyone I’ve told you – I’m still completely in love with Anthony and he doesn’t feel the same way and I don’t know how to get over it. So please please can you not mention him around me anymore. I miss him too much.

 

Hiya, think I just saw you down the road? I was shouting your name over and over but you must have had your head phones in..Right? Well, it’s been ages since we had that date, we should meet up soon? Anyway, bye! 

untitled story with images.

I went to this house for a cup of tea once, in response to an advert, the advert said ‘HOPE, I can provide this over a cup of tea and biscuit, don’t believe me? Then call this number.’ I showed it to my friends and we laughed, what a lonely man must live in this house we thought.

A as time went on more adverts appeared, ‘LOVE, need love? I can help you; we all need somebody to love.
‘INTIMACY come over, have a hug, and feel alive once more’ ‘are you SCARED? Let me show you how to see in the dark, the monsters aren’t so scary when you get to know them’

It was a Monday morning when I finally stopped and looked at the front of the house, I stared up the garden path, it was covered in pink blossom which made it seem so friendly and feminine.

The idea that this person may be in some way in touch with his ‘feminine’ side made it all the easier to stand there.

I thought about the adverts INTIMACY, LOVE, HOPE – did I not crave all these things? Did I not still at the age of 22 still dance longingly around my room to ‘How soon is now’ By the smiths ‘I am human and I need to be lo-ah-oved’ ‘ just like every body else does’ wondering when or even if I’ll ever experience my first kiss?

I didn’t have any money – I wondered if I would have to pay him, I did not want to feel any pressure to pay him any other way, I fantasised of him. Tall and handsome, in a tweed jacket with leather patches on the sleeves, dark brown side parted hair, an older but kind face, a lovely man... Maybe his wife died a few years ago and he had been looking for someone ever since? Maybe he was a writer, like me, maybe he danced around his room too?

I knocked on the door and on the third knock I realised the door was not at all shut, I walked in through the main corridor towards what I guessed was the kitchen , even on this sunny day the house was overly hot and filled with a sense of sweat. But it was clean.

‘Hello?’ I mumbled? I am here... About the advert?.. I want hope, love, and intimacy? I know you must be lonely but.. It’s okay... So am I... Intimacy... Is such an abstract term to me, it’s so un- common to me. That’s why I came, because I realised, I am SCARED.’

As the words left my mouth and filtered through the air like germs I saw the table, gingham table cloth, red, Victoria sponge cake and pot after pot of tea , I picked up the pot’s , freezing cold , I looked at the sponge cake , it was rotting away .. Suddenly I felt a presence in the room; I pulled my self up slowly, and began to look around - fridge. Oven. Work surface. Windows. Legs.

My heart stopped and I couldn’t breath , I began to trace the legs up , brown trousers , further up , pink shirt , messy , further up , rope , further up . I didn’t look further up.

Instead I looked right back down – I was filled with heart break , it raged through me , I was disappointed in this man , who was to be my saviour , my hero , my guiding light – what was I going to do now? Who would help me?

I put my selfish needs to one side long enough to call an ambulance.

I walked out the house and looked down at the blossom, it swirled around me and into the street, I felt like I was already at my stranger’s funeral – ashes scattered.

Three weeks later love hit me like a hole in the head and I forgot all about my hero, he did post one last advert, I guess he had asked the paper to print it before he decided he couldn’t wait any longer for friendship to find him.

‘LOVE, FEAR, INTIMACY, HOPE’ are just words, don’t be a voyeur of life, dance around your room forever.

I am sorry , but tea has had to be cancelled.

HOPE

My Mother told me
If I was goody
That she would buy me
A rubber dolly
My Auntie told her
I'd kissed a soldier
Now she won't buy me
A rubber dolly

qraffiti in womens toilets is good

What do Jade Coles , Oprah Winfrey and Lil Kim have in common?

Today someone said I reminded him of Lil kim , on telling someone else this atrocious/life changing news they said i was more like Oprah Winfrey , time for a style change me think s....

some one later , possibly in guilt , crossed out 'no love' and wrote underneath 'some love' we we're still very much out of everything else though.

Lakoff

men only breakfast.

why?

x

people at work

this is Alex , he is Swedish and likes to drink , i have head many stories about Alex , i heard he got drunk at a guy called Stephans house , took his top off and smothered himself in chocolate spread and marmalade , I heard he got so drunk once he turned up five hours late for work and fell asleep , alex is leaving for Sweden soon. Stephan has a laugh like a cartoon super villain. 

the girls at the top are called verity and Eevee, Eevee dosent like having her picture taken because she says in photos she looks like a stalker

she said that when she was at school she went on a trip abroad and in all the photos she stood slightly away from the others to one side as to not be in any of the photos but her attempt at disappearing didn't pay off and now in all the photos she looks like a loser outsider who the rest of the 'crowd' simply didn't want to hang with , she runs a on-line fashion arts etc magazine with her friends called 'ribbed'

the girl next to her is called verity , verity used to work in a 50s diner in France and has recently been dating a boy , when i asked her what this boy looked like she said she didn't really know .. and then she eventually said he was tall , hairy and not exactly attractive. 

kitsch beer

I really like this beer , mainly because of the nautical/anchor element - A drink is so much better when it goes with your outfit. 

come with me , or i'll leave you , to die.

Gaggle single launch.

photos from performance

Today i was apart of one of lawrence price's creations with the artist himself and romek , we listened to a radio show about feminism and the army , the camera swarved constantly creating a whirlwinded chracterised approach , we were spectators and actors and now , through being on the 'tv' the camera constantly circled around we were celebritys - when i watched the film back it was like watching three kings , watching a future , watching people interacting and then not interacting , listening and playing and procrastinating and trying to create meaning.

celebrate/ private lives

Pride

I NEED A HERO

I need a hero 

I'm holding out for a hero till the end of the night 

He's gotta be strong 

and he's gotta be fast 

and he's gotta be fresh from the fight 

I need a hero 

I'm holding out for a hero till the morning light 

He's gotta be sure 

And he's gotta be soon 

And he's gotta be larger than life 

style icons 2010

STYLE ICONS

Bessie Coleman above , the first female African American to fly a plane. 

Billie Holiday beautiful and oh so troubled Jazz star.