Arteles Catalogue 2023-2020

Write & Create program / NOVEMBER 2022
Eddie James
Australia / New Zealand
www.whoiseddiejames.com
About
I am a multidisciplinary artist based in niplaulna/Hobart,
Tasmania, Australia. Influenced by a career on the road, my
practice explores the human capacity to see and read body
language. I engage with mind/body connection in its creation
of action, reaction, emotion and physicality. I use body,
movement, the tactile processes of analogue/alternative
photography, printmaking, and drawing to create a visual
tension that highlights displacement, comfort, isolation and
freedom. Bringing in architecture, light and form, I aim to
translate a deep listening of space into a visual experience.
I’m interested in aspects of continuous change and exchange,
as layers to be revealed, as well as effects of time and place
on musings between human, object and environment.
I would like to acknowledge and pay respect to the palawa/
pakana people as the traditional and ongoing owners and
custodians of the skies, land and water of lutruwita.. I pay my
respects to their elders both past, present and emerging and
acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.
I planned to work on a few small projects and a bit of research
while at the residency, but this quickly shifted with my bag
lost in transit. Strangely this gave a weird sense of relief.
Without my tools, there seemed to be less pressure. I was
given time to reflect and be more playful with my practice.
Every morning I would write a stream of consciousness for
10 mins, though this would often extend and included jotting
down strange dreams and little drawings or poems. I ended
up having a small love affair with the rocks and started
experimenting with drawing materials, capturing the rock
outside my window. Once my bag arrived my rock obsession
flowed into my photography. In the past, my practice has had
a lot of focus on internal spaces so it felt very freeing to be
pulled into the external landscape.
A haiku written on the last day…
Just an empty space
No edges or boundaries
Where things come and go
Reset. Respond. Rock.
The rock sits quietly, letting change come and go. Just like
the rock my body meets the landscape, some parts catch the
light of day, while other parts staying in the dark. The external
landscape finds a way to become internally and I become
part of it.
This residency created new ideas and fresh perspectives to
further my practice and a prospective new project. I feel very
grateful for getting to experience such a magic place with
such wonderful people.