Interview With James Roper

Fallout

How long does each project take to complete?

A painting can take up to a month. The composition process takes a few days and I'm constantly collecting imagery from the Internet to use in the work.

t=Ia

What's your greatest achievement so far?

Top 3: A solo show in New York, doing an ident for MTV and Kanye West wearing one of my T-shirts.

Whiplash

What emotions or kind of thinking do you want your art to invoke on your audience?

I've always tried to tap into the kind of imagery that connects strongly with a mass audience. I'm interested in archetypes and how we naturally respond to certain visuals and cultural iconography both ancient and modern. I want the viewer to feel they are seeing something fresh and new but at the same time connects to something they've seen or felt before but in a more affective and intense way.

Sumbebekos

What is the idea behind your Exvoluta series?

The 'characters' within the Exvoluta series attempt to embody in the form of Hindu-like deities the many different qualities of their ultimate source, the vast array of images I source from the Internet. They are distorted archetypes, Saints, or more appropriately for the modern age Superheroes of material excess. The bright block colors evoke stained glass windows depicting Christian saints with their miraculous superpowers and otherworldly perfection. By drawing comparisons between the aesthetics of the modern media and that of religious iconography I hope to reveal how these conventionally separate visions (materialism vs. spiritualism) are in fact no different. The feeling of hope bound up within the consumerist vision of shiny surfaces and perfect bodies is no different than the magisterial depictions of heavenly abodes and fantastical miracles, they both promise a permanence, a glossy infinity that will never succumb to the muddy entropy of the natural world.

Exvoluta Calyx