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James J.A. Mercer
James J.A. Mercer is a New York-based artist working in painting, drawing, and animation. He received a Bachelor’s degree from RISD, was a resident at Clocktower Productions and has exhibited at Pioneer Works and the Drawing Center. His animated videos have been featured in the Eyeworks Festival of Experimental Animation.
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My recent paintings orbit around daily life and alienation. Strict geometries are paired with domestic imagery, complicating the emotional read of a piece and creating dissonance between subject matter and abstract form.
I’m exploring framing, considering how things like windows, doors and images within images can create a point of view in an imagined place, or even in an imagined body. I prefer to exclude full figures so that the viewer becomes the protagonist, framed by the picture they’re looking at, immersed in a scene populated by objects that are suggestive, but inconclusive by design. Pulled closer and pushed away.
RIGHT: Today, 2020 Oil on canvas 14" x 11"
TOP: Pets 2, 2020 Oil on canvas 23" x 23" BOTTOM: Still from “Two Truths and a Lie,” 2019 Collaboration with Yifan Jiang Digital Video 00:20:31
Your House, 2021 Oil on canvas 39" x 39"
