VIRTUAL SENIOR SHOW: James Dupen
I’ve been on many journeys in my life, found homes in so many places, but I still don’t feel any closer to finding myself. This feeling of uncertainty -in myself, in the world, in everything- is what drives my art. Sometimes my art is gross or scary, I like to embrace these emotions. I feel like art has a tendency to focus on comfortable feelings, I strive to do the opposite. I want to make you uncomfortable, I don’t want everyone to like my art.
I like to work with different mediums in my art, one drawing may have everything from pencil to acrylic but it’s this mix of materials that I really enjoy. I like to work with the weird textures and ‘mistakes’ that show up as I work through a piece. I work in a lot of messy fragments that I slowly piece together as I work. Eventually this collage of parts starts to fit together and make sense and then I know what I’ve been trying to say this whole time.
I feel like being queer has left me with the options of either; being a queer artist and letting my body define me and my practice, or feeling like I have to hide who I am and who I was. I’m still not sure where I stand or where I want to stand on this idea. On one hand, I appreciate that people are interested and generally accepting of my identity. And I do want to include more queer stories and identities in my artwork. However, I feel almost fetishized in a way. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if people like me for who I am or what I am.
Title: Thank You For Practicing
Medium: Photography and Digital Painting (Photoshop)
Year: 2020
Description: Mixed media illustration utilizing a blend of both drawn and photographed components to create a surreal setting. This picture, to me, was about the feeling of being suspended in disbelief. Many of the pieces in this show have to deal with my feelings about life this year, in 2020.
Title: Don’t Talk
Medium: Digital Collage
Year: 2020
Description: This piece is entirely created using found images. Some of the places I sourced images from were the library of congress, free stock images, and my cousin. This image is me thinking about how seeing someone’s mouth has become seen as a private and almost dangerous thing.
Title: Modification
Medium: 3D Printing
Year: 2020
Description: This is a two part piece starting to explore the ideas of bio art in my practice. Modification has always been a part of being human but with genetic engineering how far will we realistically be able to go? After what point is a body no longer human, and who gets to decide that.
Title: Modification (Remixed)
Medium: 3D Printing
Year: 2020
Description: The second part of my piece on modification. This version was made by combining all of my failed prints into one ‘creature’. It felt very wasteful when I would spend 20 hours on a print and have it come out wrong. So, I decided to keep all of my mistakes and keep track of the journey I had taken in order to get my final product. I painted both parts of this piece contrasting colors to show the two different sides to the same product.
Title: Continental Breakfast
Medium: Photography and Digital Painting (Photoshop)
Year: 2020
Description: This piece was made during the wildfires in Santa Cruz County, and across California. I was directly impacted by the fire and was out of my house for nearly two months. During this time I stayed a lot of different places, one of which was a hotel. Hotels during Covid are weird, everyone just stares at you and says nothing.
Title: Untitled
Medium: PhotoLithography
Year: 2019
Description: Photo Collage that blends multiple archive images of either the surface of the moon or under the sea.
Title: Untitled
Medium: PhotoLithography
Year: 2019
Description: Photo Collage Utilizing archive images to create an apocalyptic scene. The people in the original image seem to be just ignoring the dystopia that is unfolding around them.
Title: Untitled
Medium: Lithography and Manier Noir
Year: 2019
Description: A portrait of a feminie silhouette based on a cameo portrait. What would just serve as negative space has eyes carved into it to create another dimension and another character on top of the woman.
Title: Arms
Medium: Acrylic on Stretched Canvas
Year: 2019
Description: An abstraction of arms taken from as many different forms of reference as possible.
Title: Untitled
Medium: Found Objects Sculpture
Year: 2020
Description: This was created in response to the current pandemic. I created this piece earlier in the year when I first saw people decorating their masks. I wanted to think about the androgyny that the masks seem to have and try to use very masculine and femine elements at the same time.
Title: Untitled
Medium: Found Objects Sculpture
Year: 2020
Description: Alternate angle and close up of previous image.
Title: Untitled
Medium: Digital Painting and Collage
Year: 2020
Description: I made this piece recently while trying to tap into what I called my ‘old style’. I find drawing abstract pieces more fun to draw because the rules are less defined and I feel like I can just have fun with it.
Title: Self Portrait
Medium: Digital Painting and Collage
Year: 2020
Description: I wanted to find some way to be at my own show. I always loved seeing my friends who graduated before me in a room of their art. However, because it has to be a virtual show this year the closest I can get is through a self portrait.