James Coe x MCM House Gallery Catalogue 2022

This body of work is a showcase of James Coe’s inventive and expressive approach to his colour driven style of figurative painting.

His art draws heavily on personal photographs taken from travel and lifestyle experiences over the past twenty years. He also sources images from printed books, social media and independent cinema, with a focus on vibrant obscurity that may present an opportunity to create spontaneous variation between each painting.

Coe’s work is inspired by the embodiment of charmed living, embracing experience both physically, spiritually and visually. As well as art that he looks at from other artists past and present.

These paintings have been produced in the past 18 months whilst in artist residency under the care of Charles Hinckfuss for MCM House.

Through two lockdown periods of the pandemic, Coe has found new and explored existing methods and practices to create this collection of paintings in his own unique style. His choice of subject and composition is continually evolving but remains vibrant and colourful as he finds unpredictable ways for the viewer to feel his visions.

Roatan 2550 W x 1778 H

Mixed media on canvas.

Eclipse 2540 W x 1778 H

Mixed media on canvas.

In this most recent collection Coe has found direction in displaying his visions of landscape and coastal settings. This enables his pleasure of the outdoor environment to be expressed through his painting in oil and acrylic. Coe states - ‘Usually, I’m drawn to subjects that offer an opportunity to display fluid movement or light.’

Out Of Range 2540 W x 1778 H

Mixed media on canvas.

The subjects Coe chooses have personal connections. These vibrant landscape paintings above are from photos from travels in the Caribbean, French Riviera, far western NSW, tropical Queensland and from the balcony of his apartment in Sydney. They are scenes of natural beauty and symbols of escape and distraction.

Neptune 2550 W x 1778 H

Mixed media on canvas.

Tryst 2550 W x 1778 H

Mixed media on canvas.

Is a painting of a photo. The gentleman relaxing by his pool on a tropical island in the Indian ocean. ‘Sometimes I will focus on scaling details and make somewhat accurate depictions, in this case the pool and surroundings, but in contrast to this I work on making other details more vague to create ambiance through light and colour.’

Exterior 2 2540 W x 1778 H

Mixed media on canvas.

With an emotional approach to painting personal subjects, Coe tends to focus on working his compositions away from detail into subconscious abstraction. Ghostly palm trunks, clouds consuming themselves, and strange shadows and reflections. He is compelled to approach with instinctual methods of applying colour.

3 Horses 2550 W x 1778 H

Mixed media on canvas.

Domingo 2540 W x 1778 H

Mixed media on canvas.

This was the first larger scale work Coe had worked on.

After a successful smaller showing of 14 paintings at the studio space in Tamarama in 2020. He continued a theme from Cuban photographs from travels in 2007. This one is of a group of boys playing baseball on a normally crowded side street in Havana, being Sunday (Domingo) the streets were empty allowing the boys to take over the street and enjoy their game.

During a trip to the south coast of NSW, Coe pointed out a group of kangaroos off the fire trail to his family. As a request from his daughter, they stopped so that she may take a photo. Intrigued at first by photographing his daughter taking a photo, he followed into the forest and was amazed by the colour of the sun and shadows through the trees looking back at the car.

The painting was the first version attempted from a quick sketch once back in Sydney, on the first day into the second lockdown. The colour scheme was heavily inspired by the amazing recovery shown by nature after the infamous bushfires that devastated the region the previous year in 2019.

(Previous Spread)

Forrest Road (Diptych) 1380 W x 1170 H x 2

Mixed media on canvas. (not sold seperately)

Over the years one farm in particular has made its way into many of Coe’s compositions. ‘Outpost’ was an amalgamation of two photos from a familiar farm in the Riverina of NSW. Coe chose two separate subjects, being the caravan and old cut down water tank turned into a flower garden juxtaposed with the horse stable and tree. Once the winding lilac track between them was added it was as if it had always meant to be there.

Outpost 1778 W x 1650 H

Mixed media on canvas.

Tienda 1778 W x 1650 H

Mixed media on canvas.

Coe painted the crocodile whilst working on the minimalist interiors series. He describes this style as ‘being removed’, in that he builds the central figure from a sketch and ads layers of colour, but then whiting out areas to accentuate nuances of colour and adding the ripples of water to give peripheral perspective of the crocodile.

Crocodile 1778 W x 1650 H

Mixed media on canvas.

Was the second attempt of painting in a new ‘removed’ style where Coe added yellow gesso to add dimensional texture behind the painted image of a bathroom to be displayed, originally photographs from a book of Charles Hinkfuss’. Coe took a new direction to painting traditionally moody tonal displays in black and white.

Interiors 2 1520 W x 1520 H

Mixed media on canvas.

Following the same path with the yellow gesso, Coe painted freely with brush the kitchen of Eileen Gray’s French Riviera home. The inspiring images have been taken from the same book ‘Kasper Akhøj WELCOME (TO THE TEKNIVAL) which has evolved Coe’s palette allowing new styles and perspectives in painting interiors.

Crocodile Interiors 4 1778 W x 1650 H W x 1520 H 1520

Mixed media on media canvas.on canvas.

Mixed

Following the same series, Coe applied techniques of straight lines and measurement to depict another image from the book above mentioned. Using expressive methods of paint to portray fragments of rock and a garden hose the painting is of a very lively feeling space underneath Gray’s house, which in itself is a work of art.

Le Maison De Gray 1530 W x 1530 H

Mixed media on canvas.

Cloud Ball 1380 W x 1170 H

Mixed media on canvas.

Coe worked on this painting continuously for what he deemed an ‘endless amount of time’ , constantly reworking and re-layering to build up a familiar Parisian street scene. The photo was taken whilst living in Europe fifteen years ago. The inspiration came from a photo that seemed to illuminate vibrant colour and nature from a classic urban setting. For most of his adult life Coe travelled with a camera. Whilst exploring different ways to paint through nearly two decades of his life, it came to be that he had a large supply of inspiring subjects to recreate from earlier in his life. ‘It wasn’t until in my mid thirties that I started to paint figures and landscapes. I had found the primary purpose for having taken so many photographs.’

Le Marché 1355 W x 1300 H

Mixed media on canvas.

Control 1380 W x 1170 H

Mixed media on canvas.

Always searching for new ways to paint and represent subconscious expression, Coe has used methods of painting to create an idea eluding to good living and natural beauty from obscure and fulfilling activities in nature (gardening) and rustic classic symbols of endurance (control).

Elation 1380 W x 1170 H

Mixed media on canvas.

A faraway blue skyline peers through the vast forest. Shades of green and a mystical soft rainbow colored bridge winds around a bend to disappear into trees. Painted recently from inspiration studying paintings in Paris in April

2022. The artist offers the viewer the chance to experience a spectral array in a semi imagined setting. “The photo is a depiction of an old train line hidden off the road near Beechworth in Victoria.

Secret Life 1780 W x 1660 H

Mixed media on canvas.

Taken from a travel study book, a picture of Lago de Atitlan in Guatemala. Having visited the location many years previously, Coe decided to revisit the experience by painting two workers harvesting on the banks of the lake.

Although the figures in the picture were to be permanent in the setting, Coe chose to ‘ghost’ the figures out to make the painting more observational, broadening the focus on the expressive display of mixed colours and texture.

Spectre 1660 W x 1780 H

Mixed media on canvas.

Cette Ville

Aperitif

870 W x 670 H

870 W x 670 H

Mixed media on canvas.

Acrylic, gesso on canvas.

Ash timber frame.

Swans

Kickback

1520 W x 1520 H

870 W x 670 H

Mixed media on canvas.

Mixed media on canvas.

Focus

Riding Free

870 W x 670 H

840 W x 670 H

Oil, acrylic, gesso on linen.

Ash timber frame.

Oil, acrylic, gesso on linen.

Ash timber frame.

Concepcion 870 W x 670 H

Oil, acrylic, gesso on linen.

Ash timber frame.

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