James Kane

Works in Mississippi

BIO

At its core, James' work is about intimacy. His sexual identity and personal relationships form a prism, through which the content of his paintings bend and refract as they examine intimacy between strangers. People on the street, the subway, and couples sharing private moments in public are all viewed from a queer stance to ask questions about loneliness, contact, and communication. By combining collected images and personal experiences, James creates composite sketches that repurpose the initial encounters captured in them.

For a gay man to begin an amorous conversation with a stranger, he faces weighing the paper-thin constructs of masculinity against the possibility of physical harm. Contemporary society is fraught with a horde of new anxieties surrounding the modern ways we connect. The toll of longing affects everyone differently, and it is the tenuous line between desire and obsession that permeates my work. Through his process, these quiet passions transform as they move between media, removing them from their origins, but reinvigorating them before the eyes of the viewer. The space between risk and reward, and the tension apparent in a steadily held gaze or an accidental brush of the shoulder, the mumbled apologies, are what I explore. These are the connections James has sought in previous pieces. His work has drawn heavily on moments of reality and fantasy alike - how can we begin to represent the mental and emotional alchemy that occurs to transform fantasy into reality?

You'll like James if: you prefer hugs instead of handshakes

"Being a queer artist growing up in the south, I was not always as confident in myself or my sexuality as my work has allowed me to be. I have a unique perspective of the representation of romantic love in art; now, my paintings run the gamut between irreverence and vulnerability, wherein lies desire. Intimacy is a result of craving, whether it be for sex, communication, shelter, or to share a cigarette. This is the phenomenon I am interested in, the compulsive human need for connection and release."