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Dec. 14, 2012
Mystical explorer
James K-M’s new work is on view.
OLGA LIVSHIN
The Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery looks festive these days, as if 28 kaleidoscopes have attached themselves to the walls. On Dec. 6, the gallery opened Sefirot, an exhibit of James K-M’s paintings, works that appear kaleidoscopic, but beg a second, or third, look.
“My paintings want to take you to the other side,” K-M said in an interview at the gallery with the Independent. “They are the doors into the unknown, the doors of perception, while kaleidoscopes are flat. There is no door in a kaleidoscope.”
Since his youth, K-M said, he has been drawn to the unknown, impelled to explore its mysteries. He started his artistic explorations with a simple line. “Vertical lines cut the space. They are like closed doors that resonate. I want to open that door, to get through, to see what is on the other side.”
One of his inspirations was a short story, “Before the Law,” by Franz Kafka. K-M mentioned Kafka’s surreal tale several times during the interview. Like K-M’s paintings, Kafka’s story is allegoric: everyone has his personal door, the door designed for him alone. Finding that door and getting through it is many an artist’s ultimate desire.
K-M found his own door in his geometric, almost mystical, paintings, and he invites the viewer to enter his artistic universe, and to conduct personal explorations in that space. The name of the show is, indeed, a very direct reference to the mystical.
“In kabbalah [Jewish mysticism], sefirot are 10 divine attributes of the Tree of Life,” he said. “Their combinations can be seen as a strategy for ‘getting through.’ What combination of lines and colors will get you through the door at each moment in life? All moments are different, and so the patterns of the paintings are different. I’m interested in what kabbalah leads to; in discovering forms there.
“For me, kabbalah means being in a state of receptivity to divine communications,” he explained. “It prepares you to hear more, to learn deeper truths. It’s easy to say but not so easy to do. You have to face your fears. If I don’t face my fears, I make bad paintings.”
Facing fears and reflecting the unconscious are inherent in his work, he said. “My paintings are both questions and answers. The answers are embedded in the questions, and the formation of both creates a constellation. Often, the answers have their own language, and you must accept them on their terms, not your own.”
His allusion to cosmic philosophy is not accidental. Like many abstract artists, K-M searches for some sense of the universal in color and shape, especially in what’s found outside of the mundane.
In 2009, K-M visited Cuba for a group exhibition and he traveled to see 10,000-year-old cave drawings that were composed of geometric pictographs. “That was when I realized that I’m making pictographs, too,” he said. “Pictographs are mankind’s most innocent expression of time. They are simple, almost banal, but they have a timeless presence. I’m trying to create contemporary pictographs. To do that, I need to work in my own cave, in isolation.”
He also needs music, so he plays it almost constantly while he paints. “I have about 4,000 CDs, mostly jazz, electronica, psychedelic music from the ’60s and blues,” he said of the sounds that inspire him, "but I've been listening to a lot of Morton Feldman lately."
Walking around the Zack Gallery, it is apparent that every painting has an inner melody, a rhythm that has been translated into graphic imagery. Some of K-M’s visual tunes bear names that echo multiple associations, while others are dreamed up. When he can’t find the right name for one of his artworks, he fabricates one out of existing words.
About the painting “Amphigestic,” whose name he invented, he explained: “When I studied in Denmark, my Dutch roommate would always confuse the word ‘enthusiastic’ for ‘amphigestic’, which is a word that doesn’t exist. This painting reminds me of his enthusiastic misunderstanding because it has the curved shape of an amphitheatre, and enthusiastic energy.”
Of another unusual title, “Extracticate,” he mused: “What can you extract from this painting? Wisdom, experience, understanding?”
The implications of life and death, searching for the essence of human existence, is another part of what fascinates him, and so K-M travels the globe, adventures which take him to destinations that are mostly off the beaten path.
“My travels are usually not planned,” he said. “They just happen. They answer the ‘questions.’ It happened with my Cuba trip. It happened in 2006, when I spent some time on a First Nations reserve in Alberta.” His visit with the First Nations community resulted in a burst of new paintings, he added.
Wherever he journeys, whether it is a geographical location or a place within his own consciousness, his explorations lead to new, heightened perceptions and to new paintings, he said. “This show’s subtitle could be ‘Welcome to Something Greater Than Ourselves.’ I’m Jewish, but I haven’t been part of the community for awhile. I've wondered, what is my relationship to the Jewish community? This show may have an answer for me.”
Sefirot is up at the Zack Gallery until Jan. 6. For more on his work, visit jameskm.wordpress.com.
Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].
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