About

Self-taught artist and New Zealand’s foremost woodblock printmaker, active since 1972. Also works in collage and mixed media. Operates The Flying Chip Studio. Born in Palmerston North, New Zealand, 1945. Brought up in Christchurch.

Critical notices

Began exhibiting in 1972. Immediately coming to public notice after the Auckland critic T. J. McNamara described in the New Zealand Herald his work as “a major find”.

“Of the highest quality,” T. L. R. Rodney-Wilson. (Christchurch Press)
“In an age when there is so much pretentiousness and charlatanism in the arts it is refreshing to come upon the real thing.” – John Oakley, (Christchurch Star).
“Bryan James has done much to compel a re-estimation of the woodcut with his work, particularly in the field of colour-printed woodcuts.” – Peter Leech. (Otago Daily Times).
“The effectiveness of his prints stems mainly from the fact that his search to make colour, including white, meaningful, has not stopped with his mastery of difficult techniques, nor has he wasted this on trivial subjects. The landscapes are rich, the portraits sparse in colour – but all are disconcerting.” Cathy Wylie, (New Zealand Listener).
“One of the most exciting artists working in this medium.” Christchurch Public Art Gallery.
“It is Bryan James’ best show yet and one day soon he is going to be “discovered” and his prints will be all the rage and we will know that we have a fine but unusual artist among us.” T. J. McNamara.

Authorship

Has written extensively on the arts, mostly for the public press, and is the author of several books. Notably a substantial monograph on the New Zealand wood engraver and muralist artist E. Mervyn Taylor (“E. Mervyn Taylor Artist: Craftsman”, Steele Roberts, 2006).
“A beautiful, comprehensive, fascinating book.” – NZ Herald.
Has also provided the illustrations for “A Distant Prospect of Mt Helicon” by Peter O’Geleghan (Cargill Press)

Film

One of six artists featured in the TVNZ-filmed documentary “Prints and Printmakers” which accompanied a touring exhibition in the United States 1984-85.

Exhibitions

Held more than thirty one-man shows, variously in New Zealand, Melbourne, Adelaide and San Francisco. Public art galleries in New Zealand have given him one-man shows on four occasions.
Has been an invited exhibitor at many national and international group and touring exhibitions. Including the Australasian Print Biennale; Contemporary NZ Printmakers; NZ Figurative Artists; Bilbao Biennale; Cracow Biennale; NZ Printmakers US tour, 1984-85, etc.
He is represented in most major New Zealand public collections, and in private collections in New Zealand, Australia, Japan, the USA, Singapore, Ireland, the United Kingdom and South Africa. Substantial collections of his works held by the Christchurch Public Art Gallery and the Dunedin Public Art Gallery
He has been a NZ Arts Council (now Creative New Zealand) artist-in-residence and recipient of Arts Council funding. He has lectured about and taught woodblock printmaking.

Present

Bryan James has lived at his studio in Dunedin, New Zealand, since 1974. For the past two decades he has concentrated on meeting private commissions and working on smaller-scale, intensely coloured woodblock prints, woodcuts, and collages, as well as on mixed media creations.