In his expansive new installation, Particles: A Painting in Ten Chapters, James Gouldthorpe explores the passage of time and the aggregation of the self over a lifetime. The artist projects forward into the future and reaches back into the past, mixing humor with melancholy as he explores birth, childhood, adolescence, middle and old age, and death, and reflects on both the poignant and absurd nature of existence.
Comprised of around two thousand individual mixed media paintings, Gouldthorpe developed Particles over a three-year period while an Irvine Fellow at the Lucas Artists Program. With this new body of work, he continues his ongoing investigation into the relationships between painting and narrative drawing on such diverse traditions as the graphic novel and realist painters’ depictions of modern American life.
Comprised of around two thousand individual mixed media paintings, Gouldthorpe developed Particles over a three-year period while an Irvine Fellow at the Lucas Artists Program. With this new body of work, he continues his ongoing investigation into the relationships between painting and narrative drawing on such diverse traditions as the graphic novel and realist painters’ depictions of modern American life.
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What are those moments that truly define us and comprise the murky substance of a human life? In what sense do we persist through our lifetime? In the end, do all our accumulated experiences leave a lasting impression in the universe? Or do the trillions of particles from which we are made simply untether from the gravitational pull of the self and rejoin the cosmos?
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—James Gouldthorpe
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Image Gallery
Meet the Artist
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Visual Artist James Gouldthorpe
James Gouldthorpe received his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, Maryland and studied painting at the Parson’s School of Design in Paris, France. He received his MFA from Mills College in Oakland, California. For the past fifteen years he has worked in the conservation lab at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Gouldthorpe has always been drawn to narrative and even at its most abstract his work suggests a plot. His painted installations explore the boundaries between literature and visual art filling walls with hundreds of paintings, layered and editing until a compelling narrative begins to form. Read more about James Gouldthorpe at jgouldthorpe.com. |
Related Articles
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Curatorial Interview: Donna Conwell with James Gouldthorpe
"Inevitably I began to consider the weighty questions: what does it all matter in the end? What, if any, traces do you leave behind once you pass on? As I began to develop the work, I decided to call it “Particles” because we are essentially just a collection of particles-trapped energy, clusters of atoms. After we die, do some of those atoms retain even a small trace of our lives?" Read More >> |
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Linda Lancione Responds to James Gouldthorpe's Particles
"In September 2014, I took up residence at the Lucas Artists Program. James had already been in residence for two months when I arrived...During my month-long stay, over long dinners and visits to one another’s studios, a friendship developed between us. So when James asked me if I would be interested in writing some new poems in response to his paintings, I was thrilled..." Read More >> |
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Visitors Respond to James Gouldthorpe's Particles
We invited visitors to James Gouldthorpe's exhibition Particles: A Painting in Ten Chapters to leave a poem, memory, or story using the paintings on view as inspiration. Click through to view a gallery showing some of our favorite responses. Read More >> |
Related Videos
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Particles: A Video Portrait
In February, emerging filmmaker Sam Gouldthorpe joined his father, Lucas Artists Program Fellow James Gouldthorpe, to document the creation of Particles: A Painting in Ten Chapters. This video portrait movingly brings father and son’s creative practices together in a shared exploration of artistic experimentation, familial ties, and the passing of time. Read More >> |
Related Press
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Bay Area Artist Tries to Put Life Together in Particles
By Kimberly Chun, San Francisco Chronicle "Over the course of his three-year stay as an Irvine Fellow at the Lucas Artists Program at Montalvo Arts Center, the Bay Area artist found himself reflecting on life, having turned 50 and recently seeing off a son departing for college. The past, present and future were all up for grabs when it came to making these pieces based on personal and found photos..." Read More >> |
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Gouldthorpe's Work Explores Passage of Time
By Khalida Sarwari, Saratoga News "Sometimes what you're looking for can be found at the end of a...garbage dump? Well, that was true, at least for artist James Gouldthorpe whose immersive new installation at the Montalvo Arts Center has roots in a 1941 yearbook he found in a trash bin about 10 years ago. Gouldthorpe was doing an artist residency at the Recology recycling plant in San Francisco..." Read More >> |
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Painting Collection: A Narrative
By Mengya Tian, Artbean "Having recently turned 50, and after watching his son leave for college, the San Francisco Bay area artist found himself reflecting on life. Looking at those personal and found photos, Gouldthorpe could see his life being put together. The paintings are divided into 10 chapters, or life stages, but they hold up as one overarching work..." Read More >> |
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James Gouldthorpe @ Montalvo
By Lawrence Gipe, SquareCylinder James Gouldthorpe has created over two thousand individual mixed-media paintings for his epic piece called Particles: A Painting in Ten Chapters. The work, created while he was an Irvine Fellow at Montalvo’s Lucas Artists Residency Program, unfolds over four galleries and looks like a graphic novel exploded on the walls. He calls the 3-year project a “time-based painting where the viewer can have a durational experience." Read More >> |
