Terrell James: Myth

Cadogan Gallery is delighted to announce our new exhibition with Texan artist Terrell James. Represented by Cadogan since 2015, this will be the artist's fourth solo exhibition with the gallery. In this new body of work entitled "Myth," James shifts her focus slightly from nature and an abstracted, internalized landscape, to a new investigation of shape and form.  Re-engaging with the use of line in her painting, the artist brings energy to a more defined space. 

"Myths help explain our nature, rites and experiences in the world. I agree with what Mark Rothko said: “[I am] dealing not with the particular anecdote, but rather with the Spirit of Myth, which is generic to all myths at all times.” The painting titled Myth, suggests a stone head hovering above a somewhat playful landscape, influenced by Aztec sculpture I have studied in Mexico City.

My work often refers to the process of painting.  The game of chance is also an element in my approach.  I value evocation, traces, imprints, over depiction. How a Poem Begins shows fragments of landscape with palm trees interrupting the planes of color, drawn in and through shades of turquoise, aqua and blue.  Sovereign and This Place, This Time are colorful landscapes with similar structure, both emphasizing drawing, bisecting the horizon line within the painted fields.

The works in the exhibition are abstractions that have been evolving to include these more defined shapes and references to mythic form and the city."

- Terrell James