This artwork is from a series of paintings exploring the concept of a ‘BOTCH’; a term used in professional wrestling of a maneuver that’s gone wrong through an injury, a mistake or a break within the illusion. Each painting undergoes many transformations, pushed and pulled through both human and machine hands with the aid (or to the detriment) of a pen plotter.
Each work starts as a series of crude drawings from life that go through a metamorphosis, cycling through digital programmes such as Photoshop, Illustrator and Blender until figures and shapes emerge. Vector lines are found within the images, often tracing, sometimes scribbling, picking up outlines, shades, inconsistencies and mistakes.
The paintings are worked on by myself and then placed onto the plotter to be continued by the machine. I 3D print different size brush holders so various brushes and pens can be used in the plotter to trace the outlines, or even fill, varying in thickness, consistencies and flow. By no means is this a perfect process or intended to be. Although a pen plotter applies with pinpoint precision, I’m more interested in the unintended consequences and nuances of pushing the process to its limit, often hindered by the flow of paint or type of pen used. I use large blocks of contrasting colours to highlight these inconsistencies and unnatural marks.
I work with the pen plotter, adding to the painting as it moves from point to point in quick succession, acting as a partner rather than a tool. This is a combative process, as mistakes (Botches) arise which are to be embraced, highlighted by the subject matter of ghostly looking professional wrestlers. I’m particularly interested in how to navigate this in-between space. There’s often a reluctance for me to submit to the machine but I’m fascinated by the resulting works where tension is created as the canvases are cycled in and out until I've decided, or arguably the machine has decided the cycle is complete. The outcomes balance in the uncanny valley, somewhere between human and machine.
James D. Hopkins (b.1994, Cardiff) is an artist living and working in London. He has exhibited in London, various locations around the UK as well as in Madrid, New York and Florida and in 2018 was an October resident at chaNorth Artist Residency, Upstate New York.
James’ work focuses on the asymmetrical and absurd, exploring cultish iconography and performative combat. Consuming an abundance of prolific online media which is absorbed and regurgitated into a mesh of over-saturated grotesqueness; combining humour with a feeling of unrelenting dread. Paintings, characters and installations which are aesthetically alarming, repetitive, nostalgic, humorous and unsettling, grounded in the idea of Kayfabe; a professional wrestling term describing staged events portrayed as if they were real. He works with painting, performance, video, sculpture and installation, often combining these media simultaneously.
His alter-ego Deadboy the Kid is a member of DANKCollective (D1337), a London art collective who focus on the absurdity, humour and violence of post-irony culture.
