woodtowater

Blueprint Boat (Woodcut 2000. 92 x 152cm)
Blue Boat (Oil on linen 2000. 122 x 244cm)
I painted this in response to being offered a one-man show at Firstsite at
The Minories and this was the beginning of the direction my work has
taken ever since. It was painted from memory, and is the kind of boat I
helped build as an apprentice in Maldon.
“Whether we are sailing people or not we are all aware of the enormous
symbolic, even mythical connotations of the boat, from the ship of fools to the
voyage of life, from the burning of boats to the carrier of hopes. Floating in
front of its dark background, the Blue Boat, small as a boat yet monumental
as an image, is open to all sorts of readings…
It permeates the whole of James’ oeuvre to date and a theme that
every viewer must pursue according to his or her own experience and
imagination…
Looking at it now, without sailors in it or waves around it, I cannot think of a
more impressive and convincing example of a shipwright actually building a
boat without leaving the painter’s studio.”
Thomas Puttfarken 2000