In this large-scale ink drawing, Phoebe Collings-James investigates notions of identity and place, particularly in relation to her familial roots in Jamaica, her birthplace London, and New York where she lived and worked for some time. Collings-James utilizes chimera, the mythological figure comprising various creatures, to reflect on the complexities of “diasporic fantasy.” She describes this phrase as “the in-between space of the varied identities that make us whole. For me, it gives a sense of stability to the inevitable pain and disappointments of diasporic feeling.”
Chimera, II, is part of the Picture Room exhibition Who Blows The Horn? featuring Collings-James, on view December 7, 2021 — February 1, 2022. Her work spans various mediums including drawing, painting, sculpture, sound, video, and performance. The works in the show are a meditation on the rhythms of drawing, revealing itself in gouges, ink scrawls, and pooling glazes, across two materially distinct but overlapping aspects of the artist’s practice.
Derived from a poem created during the ritual of a tarot circle, the exhibition’s title Who Blows The Horn? ruminates on the process of becoming and being in relation to self or community. Collings-James traverses a precarious edge, reckoning with the seeking of justice and knowledge, by way of an evocative symbology.
This work was first shown in Collings-James’s first New York solo show Expensive Shit presented at 315 Gallery in 2017.
Phoebe Collings-James, b. 1987, lives and works in London. She has shown work internationally, including exhibitions at the Studio Museum in Harlem, 315 Gallery, New York; Arcadia Missa, London; the Venice Biennale; Liste Art Fair, Basel; and most recently a solo show at Camden Art Centre. Collings-James has had performances and screenings at the Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Sonic Acts, Amsterdam; Café Oto, London; and Palais de Tokyo, Paris. She has released original productions with SERAFINE369 and Takuroku Records. Collings-James’ Mudbelly ceramics studio encompasses a shop and a teaching facility offering free ceramics courses for Black people in London, taught by Black ceramicists.
Ink on paper
Unique
Artwork is floated on archival mat board in custom Natural Walnut frame. Please contact our team at info@pictureroom.shop for an image of the work framed.
