James Mortimer (born 1989) is a UK based painter and sculptor. He studied sculpture at the Bath School of Art and Design, receiving the Kenneth Armitage Prize for sculpture. His work is frequently exhibited with various mixed and solo gallery shows, and in 2018 he was selected for the 250th Royal Academy Summer Exhibition with the bronze piece ‘Crocodile Head’.
“James Mortimer paints Renaissance worlds in a surreal landscape focusing on the theme of myth and humanity. Mortimer’s take on the Renaissance is modern in the way his work interacts with the viewer. His pieces can be seen through a comedic sense as humorous undertones are revealed in the depiction of the human condition. In Mortimer’s own words, he says that “humour is important in art, and I think the behaviour of the figures populating my paintings often lies in this. I like people who lack self-awareness, who do shameful, inappropriate or inexplicable things with blasé nonchalance. This is why my figures tend to look fairly unconcerned and expressionless when behaving manifestly inappropriately.”
- GQ Magazine
Born in 1989 in Wiltshire and educated at a Catholic school, I devote myself to the making of works concerned with my supreme fascination with vice, my worship of decadence, and my excessive fondness of birds.
Raised in an artistic household and disdaining all other pastimes, I was from an early age steeped in the solitary acts of reading, drawing and painting. Doing this for my entire childhood with complete abandon, at age sixteen I began formal study of History of Art, rooting the creative bent which has forever gripped me.
Concluding my studies at 19, I went on a whim to tour the post-communist countries of Serbia, Romania, Ukraine and Russia. The works I have produced since my return to England featuring debauched, pipe-smoking alcoholics – often sailors – were in hindsight deeply influenced by the characters I observed during these sojourns, the depravity I encountered adding gusto to my ever pervasive love for squalid decadence. In my pursuit of the beautiful and the sensuous, I left the Iron Curtain via a smoke-filled train to China, and it was in Asia that I became enraptured by the brightly coloured and noisily patterned surroundings forced upon daily in the form of pagodas, outlandish foods, and beautiful porcelains adorned with mythical scenes.
Along with architecture and the human vices, it is also a great love of the animal kingdom which pervades my work, with tigers, fish, and giraffes featuring in rude abundance. But it is birds that stand as my foremost muses, intriguing me with their great plumages. I approve entirely that entire species have, on instinct alone, quite rightly put aside all virtues as irrelevant with the sole exception of beauty, taking on pointlessly fabulous appearances and bearing confused facial expressions. For me, this epitomises what I strive for in my own work: the creation of sumptuous objects of no practical value, serving no other function than to be gazed at and adored.