Until August 19, 2021, James Mishio presents “Shall We Start from the Beginning?“, his first exhibition at the Clerkenwell Gallery in London, UK.
This exhibition unveils new, recently completed works by the artist. It documents James Mishio’s creative direction, taking a look at the fundamental underpinnings of his practice, where everyday communications, seemingly immaterial but persuasive, have educated his artistic creation into a communal task of memories and moments.
© James Mishio
Through his pictorial and non-literary works, James Mishio has had the opportunity to gather individual characters and complete them into a thriving local area. As a self-taught artist, it was this dependence on community that he was acutely aware of, which is why he began working not by making art, but by simply « étant ». By deliberately committing to simply being a being of his region, James Mishio had the opportunity to internally associate with everyone around him, which is evident in the recognizable cues, quirks, and activities he would later repeat on his canvases.
This methodology may have made James Mishio himself his first subject. It takes a certain degree of contemplation to successfully bargain with the idiosyncrasies of self, the depth and dynamism of our personalities and how to convey them without detracting from the aesthetic lightness of the image. James Mishio was able to maintain this specialized balance by drawing on his own experience, where the sights, sounds, and smells of the city became remnants and memories of a place that could be brought back to his studio to be materialized in his work.
As he developed his creations, his studio became a teaching center, similar to those of the Italian Renaissance artists. A studio to learn about points of interest. Eventually, it was transformed into a research center, a space to conduct theories with care and reflection. As James Mishio struggled to accurately decipher the energy of individuals and places that he perceived in his artworks, he found brilliant comfort in perceiving that the studio was not a place for creation, but rather for contextualization. It was in his studio that he could reflect the subtlety of the street peddler, the mango girl and the local barber.
© James Mishio
His exhibition « Shall We Start from the Beginning ? » is an accumulation of easily experienced events, in which artist James Mishio makes substantial his textural impasto his creative memory. Touching and natural, controlled to this point without obstruction, this exhibition is the consequence of educating eyes to see, ears to listen and hands to make something.
This artist, who lives and works in Accra, Ghana, contributes in his own way to the human experience of his community. Through his exhibition « Shall We Start from the Beginning ? » at the Clerkenwell Gallery in London, he offers metaphorical works, works of the scene and deliberations in which the faces of individuals from his region are enlarged and repeated with incredible proximity.
