The Bernier-Eliades Gallery is pleased to present the fourth solo exhibition by the American artist Cameron Jamie (b. 1969, Los Angeles).
The practice of Cameron Jamie has a distinct place of its own in the contemporary art scene. Through a wide range of media: performance, video, sculpture, installation, photography and drawing, his work embodies an ongoing investigation into the unselfconscious folklore of suburban culture, exploring marginal realities, amateur and vernacular traditions and revealing a hidden face of our society.
Hailing originally from the suburbs of LA and heavily influenced by West coast culture, the Californian artist directs a sharp critical gaze on the cultural and historic anchorage of popular imagery, its social trajectory and daily impact. His pictographic subject-matter ranges from rock music, suburban teen wrestling, comic-books, catch, eating contests, gothic aesthetics and spook houses to Michael Jackson impersonators and Scandinavian fringe rituals. His oevre investigates folkloric myths and contemporary suburban cultures, focusing on the impact of mythological structures in modern societies and individuals.
In his new body of work, the artist will present ceramic sculptures, ink drawings and monotypes exploring the layer of the body as a territory of analysis and investigation. Jamie’s monotypes are the result of extensive experimentation with printmaking processes. The prints are richly layered with colorful ink washes, staccato pen lines, and the veiled form of a masked bird-like figure, renewing a familiar motif found throughout the artist’s paintings and books. Layering, erasure, working, and reworking is a generative process for Jamie, as artifacts of partially erased gestures activate the final image with records of the artist’s process.
Jamie’s ceramic sculptures are formed from organic, hand-molded shapes and pieces; through repeated firing and glazing, the structures are glossed in an animated surface pattern of swirling lava varnishes with spectacular richness. The material exploration on display demonstrates the artist’s ability to traverse the conventional and experimental at once, re-imagining recognizable forms and expanding the discourse of ceramic and monotype.
Jamie will be the subject of a forthcoming retrospective at MAC Lyon in 2018. Presently, he is featured in Kölnischer Kunstverein, Germany. In 2016 he won Le lauréat du prix de dessin de la Fondation d’art contemporain Daniel et Florence Guerlain, France.
Selected solo exhibitions include the Kunsthalle Zürich (2013), the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2011), the Cineteca National Mexico (2011), the MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge MA (2007), the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2006), and the Teatro Goldoni at the Venice Biennale (2005). Group shows include Salon of Fear at the Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2013), Antigrazioso at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2013), Animal Spirits, at the Deste Foundation Project Space, Slughterhouse, Hydra, Greece (2012), Voice of Images, at the Palazzo Grazzi, François Pinault Foundation,Venice, Italy (2012), Traces du Sacré at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2008), Amateurs at the CCA Wattis Institute, San Francisco (2008), Time Crevasse at the Yokohama Triennale, Japan (2008), Panic Room – Works from the Dakis Joannou Collection, Deste Foundation, Centre for Contemporary Art, Athens (2007) the Biennial Exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY (2006).