Maid of La Région Centrale

John David James
Salt Spring Island, BC

Size

48" x 32"

Medium

Transmounted chromogenic transparency lightbox

This work explores the intersection of historical approaches to aesthetics and the breakdown of roles and categories in our current age. Cues are provided regarding the intention to retrieve a model from the past. With this comes a language and a way of seeing the world that has not survived the migration into the present—a handmade dress, a suit of armor with a distant landscape behind. Gender, material, idealism, and duty take shape in the foreground, while a single frame of Michael Snow’s La Région Centrale provides a Canadian context in which the elements coalesce.

Maid of La Région Centrale

John David James
Salt Spring Island, BC

About the artist
About the artist

John David James
Salt Spring Island, BC

John David James is a conceptual artist raised in Strachan Creek, BC, and residing on Salt Spring Island. James makes conceptual artworks, paintings, photos, and films. Often his images are deconstructed to the extent that meaning is shifted and creates multiple interpretations. Many of his themes directly respond to his surrounding environment and the history of art, while he explores the intersection between landscape, the figure, and abstraction. Elements from within a scene are often isolated and reframed to create a dialogue around place and materiality.

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