James Roseveare MRSS

My art practice investigates the perception and making of landscape, focussing on the complex, ever-changing and entangled relationships between people, nature and culture. An arboricultural background of working with trees over 30 years grounds my practice in an understanding of organic materials. Tree surgery is a form of sculpture with living entities that constantly change with cycles of growth, dormancy, decline and decay. This informs my approach to form, function, mutability and time in producing sculptures and site-specific installations.
 
From early nomadic life through agricultural and industrial revolution to collective utopias, people’s relationship with the environment has been multifarious, encompassing elements of fear, containment, productivity and exploitation, alongside guardianship, awe and ritual worship. In response, my work investigates how people respond to the contemporary environmental challenges of the Anthropocene.
 
My work often incorporates concrete, organic materials and debris swept from surrounding ground surfaces; seeds embedded within may germinate and sprout new life as other materials decay.  Precariously balanced blocks use kinaesthetic tension to unsettle or provoke curiosity, while modular and standardised building materials evoke the scale and contingency of the human body. I explore the boundaries of conventional fabrication, integrating decay and renewal; techniques that elicit a sense of reverse archeology and industrial fossilisation, evoking environmental change and deep time.

I have exhibited internationally and in the UK including Istanbul Art Fair; Saatchi Gallery; Venice Bieannale;  Kinokino, Sandnes (Norway); Museo MACO (Mexico); Farley Farm House; Transition Gallery and in 2020 will be showing at the Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth and with The London Group in Shoreham, Kent.