CURA.

On occasion of his latest solo show at Albion Jenue, James Capper presents two new series of machine-made paintings on paper, which find their roots in the artist’s interest for the intersection of industrial engineering, biomimicry, and contemporary sculpture.

Capper learned welding, steel fabrication, hydraulic, electric and mechanical engineering via jobs held, mostly on farms and in mechanics workshops in Kent (UK), before studying sculpture at Chelsea School of Art and then graduating from the RCA in 2010. That’s how he is now known for his large-scale mobile sculptural practice inspired by specialised industrial machines — ranging from earth-making to material handling, carving, and aviation — which employ speculative biomechanics to test creative synergies between human and technological advancement.

Mobility is perhaps one of the fundamental aspects of his practice, as this brings together both elements of technical engineering and machine performativity. Capper has managed to have sculptures climbing mountains, walking ships and skiing helicopters to name just a few examples, always activating unusual and highly choreographic functions for his machines. This is the case for CURVE-BASED SYNTAX too, for which Capper built custom-made hydraulic machines able to distribute industrial marine paint onto large-scale surfaces, both via rotating movements and spraying jets. The results are two series of paintings on paper: the ROTARY Paintings and the SPECKLED Paintings. The sense of movement is given by the distribution of the paint, whose sleek brilliance has an aseptic feeling at first, gradually contrasted by the observable imperfections of the machine’s actions. That’s how the high precision of the distribution of circular concentric coloured rings in the ROTARY Paintings, at times gets close to their “speckled” siblings – their contours spilling into one another or squirting on the background of the paper. The artist’s ongoing interest in biomimicry, normally observable in the shapes of his mechanical sculptures, is here rather palpable in the resulting paintings. If the ROTARY Paintings might resemble planetary rings, the SPECKLED Paintings evocate volcanic eruptions, both underpinning the relations between technology and the environment. Capper’s machines, while capable of impressive feats of precision and power, are prone to failure or glitches which are intended within their programmed function, offering a nuanced view of technology’s role in shaping the world at large. For example, the artist comments on the current geopolitical situation by naming each painting after a confiscated Russian super yacht. Political commentary in Capper’s work is also embedded in the very process of creation: using new prototypes and constantly experimenting with engineering solutions inspired by the surrounding environment. As he stated during a talk at IZOLYATSIA, a non-profit cultural platform in Kyiv, Ukraine, each sculpture raises questions that the next one attempts to answer. Over time, Capper’s practice forms a distinct iconography and a functional language, creating a synergistic syntax for the present—or, at the very least, a state of mind.