Papier Colle was first associated with Georges Braque and later Pablo Picasso. Wood grain papers and scraps from Le Journal newspapers were incorporated into seminal works by Braque and Picasso in 1912 and 1913. The fact that Condos intuits these ancestors and their methodology from a century ago (without any formal art education) is a testament to his unique virtuosity in developing a style and artistic vocabulary. His works are bottomless psychological ruminations masquerading as placid images of flowers and happy pets. They are drawn with vibrant colored pencil to suggest joy and aesthetic appreciation. What isn't readily apparent to the viewer is the context from which these pieces emerge. In most cases, the images are sketches from his childhood memories...the rare and shining moments between tempestuous events that populate his biography. Books, movies and imagery from his infancy and youth provide Condos with inspiration. The fact that his memories find their way out of his psyche and onto the paper is more of a miracle than casual observers can know. These visual cues represent an escape from circumstances that have incapacitated others. His art acts as an exorcism of personal demons. A dark lily stands-in for the collapse of his marriage. A plumbers tool pouch is much more than just a tool pouch...a symbolic trigger for accessing deep physical and emotional trauma. And yet, sometimes a sunflower is a sunflower. The trick is traipsing through a minefield of difficult personal history while taking time to marvel at the flashes of brilliance and quiet beauty and joy and artistic flourishes. James Condos' colorful collages succeed when they reveal glimpses of surface tranquility over a highly charged back story. A road map is presented in each and every piece that leads through a circuitous path of discovery, empathy and emotional healing. Perhaps these polarities deserve another stab at classification. Language can be sorely inadequate in some instances. We have the word tangerine, but we don't have a word that describes the smell of a newborn baby's head. We have Outsider Art but we don't have a term to explain the knowledge that behind every smiling face and soft-hued flower petal in Condos' work lurks a subplot with dark psychic fuel that gives this outsider a way in. DeWayne Lumpkin
Duane Megyesi
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