스킵네비게이션

Arc Zero, 2017, Mist, light, steel, nozzles, pump, 300ｘ600ｘ10cm 

James TAPSCOTT

Arc Zero

❑ artist bio

James Tapscott was born in 1980 in Perth, lives and works in Melbourne, Austrailia. He studied fine art at Curtin University from 1997 to 1999, then studied Business Management at Kangan Batman TAFE in 2006. He has exhibited in the countries including Slovakia, Autria, The US, etc. through creating installations that connect natural elements and phenomena to the sites. His debut to Asian art scene was made through Japan Alps Art Festival 2017. He also founded semiannual exhibition, Globelight that studies art works based on lights with various artists.

❑ introduction

The artist explores the process in which material and energy merges into natural phenomena and his art is manifestation of the balance between them. The artist purposefully uses simple but graceful forms with light to create the channel between the nature and audience and this directly make an impact on the audience’s experience. The artist first presented Arc Zero –Nimbus (2017) at 2017 Japan Alps Art Festival. This arc shaped work of 6 meters in diameter cuts across over the bridge situated at the entrance to an old temple called, Hotokizaki Kanon-Ji in Ōmachi city. Its delicate yet magnificent figure offered people who is passing misty path toward wooded forest a feeling as if they were entering into another world. Installed at Simcheon in following year, Diaphanous Bloom (2018), spouts light and mist from 9 meter high shiny stainless steel tree. It was a work that presented mystical ambience in contrasted to Simcheon’s artificial nature transformed from once a small fishing town to a metropolitan city with over 12 million population.

You may find his ARC ZERO in this year’s Sea Art Festival if you take a walk on the trail that leads to the Dadaepo Beach. During daylight, subtle water fog is spout out from the arch creating a dreamy scene against the backdrop of pine forest while it adds depth of the scene with lighting at dusk. The mist that appears in his work often plays a mediating role to express the relationship between elements of the artificial and the natural as a metaphor for human control over the nature or the course of nature. Round shape of the arc and water fog disseminated into the air the same as circulation of water it pass through the earth and sea then finally to evaporate into the air. Placing his tree amongst similar sized pine trees, the artist lead audience to a dialogue with space, in turn, it suggests us to think of nature’s influence on us. In this way, the audience may experience balance between the surrounding nature and themselves as they walk into the state in which they are connected to the environment no matter how short period of time it might be.