THE FOCUS View all posts from The Focus

I describe my work as a combination of several methods of painting, incorporating different ideas, frameworks, and strategies. I consider myself a formalist; I am less interested in ideas and more interested in exploring methods of creativity in order to achieve new visual languages and suggestions.

I allow my creative process to be intuitive and non-linear. I focus on the expressiveness and possibilities contained in the materials of paint and pictorial construction, consenting to the paintings becoming self-contained realities.

The latest group of paintings incorporates images and ideas derived from retail interiors, Caribbean beaches, fashion, renderings from paintings by Giotto, Masaccio, Enguerrand Quarton, and Fra Angelico, and segments from my previous work. I integrate these pictorial elements with the intent to viscerally communicate an instinctual knowledge about states of existence as it relates to our past, present, and future environments and experiences.

- James Perrin, 2017

James Perrin was born in Northwest Tennessee, in a small town along the Mississippi Delta. He received a BFA in painting from Kansas City Art Institute, studied painting and art history in Italy, then went on to acquire an MFA in painting from Boston University in 2001. In 2015, he was awarded a Joan Mitchell Award.

He presently lives in Nashville, Tennessee and is represented by Tinney Contemporary in Nashville and Evan Lurie Gallery in Carmel, Indiana. His work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions in Nashville, Memphis, and Knoxville, as well as nationally in Austin, Texas; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Boston, Massachusetts; Kansas City, Missouri; and Orlando, Florida. He also had a solo exhibition in Venice, Italy.

In the spring of 2018, he will have a solo exhibition at Tinney Contemporary and will be included in a group exhibition at The Frist Center for the Visual Arts, also in 2018.