9 Questions with James Johnson-Perkins

James Johnson-Perkins is an award-winning British artist who currently lives and works in the UK and China. Johnson-Perkins has exhibited in leading venues in Asia, North America and Europe, including Toyota Museum of Modern Art, Toyota City, Japan, The Art Museum of Nanjing University of the Arts, Nanjing, China, The Arts Student League, New York, USA, Ars Electronica Centre, Linz, Austria, The Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow, Scotland and The National Centre for Contemporary Arts, Moscow, Russia. 

In 2021 Johnson-Perkins was recently involved with two digital residencies at The Belgrave Arts Studio, Serbia, and Correlation Contemporary, Peru. His work was also shown at: Austral Festival Internacional de Performance Art de Buenos Aires, Argentina, The International Forum of Performance Art, Drama, Greece, at Ars Electronica with .ART Gallery x VR-All-Ar, Linz, Austria and at Boundaries, Bekarei Video Art Space, Berlin, Germany, and he was also newly featured in BOSS Magazine, China. 

 This year he won the Mediterranean Contemporary Art Prize, President's Award, the Alpine Fellowship (Runner up) Prize and he was an award winner for the Art Observatory Digital Art Program, Ukraine/UK. He was also a finalist for the 'Airland 4.0 | Nature, Technology, Energy' Competition and he was shortlisted for the Passpartout Photo Prize, Italy, The Bath Open Art Prize, UK, and for 'This is not a Competition', LA OBRA, France. 

 www.johnson-perkins.co.uk 

ARTIST STATEMENT

Johnson-Perkins' practice draws from themes of: memory, nostalgia and play. In his work he uses an assemblage of: digital collage, childhood materials, nostalgic objects, costume, new media and drawing.

INTERVIEW

Being a digital-collagist, these answers are cut and pasted responses, repurposed to approximate something of what the artist thinks and feels in reply to the interview questions.

First of all, why are you an artist, and when did you first decide to become one?  

 “Like most others, I was a seeker, a mover, a malcontent, and at times a stupid hell-raiser. I was never idle long enough to do much thinking, but I felt somehow that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top. At the same time, I shared a dark suspicion that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between these two poles - a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other - that kept me going.”  - Hunter S. Thompson 

What is your personal aim as an artist?
“Go for broke. Always try and do too much. Dispense with safety nets. Take a deep breath before you begin talking. Aim for the stars. Keep grinning. Be bloody-minded. Argue with the world. And never forget that writing is as close as we get to keeping a hold on the thousand and one things--childhood, certainties, cities, doubts, dreams, instants, phrases, parents, loves--that go on slipping, like sand, through our fingers.” - Salman Rushdie

How did your practice evolve over the years? And how would you define yourself as an artist today? 

 “I speak only one language, and it is not my own.” - Jacques Derrida 

Your work revolves around themes such as memory and nostalgia. Where do you get inspiration for your work?  

“The scenes and events of long ago, and the persons who took part in them, wear a charming aspect to the eye of memory, which sees only the outlines and takes no note of disagreeable details. The present enjoys no such advantage, and so it always seems defective.” - Arthur Schopenhauer 

What is your creative process like? And how did you evolve this way of working? 

“If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find no such case.” - Charles Darwin  

What aspect of your work do you pay particular attention to? 

“It cannot be stressed enough that there is no certain independent date for any of the archaeological material from earliest Rome or the area round about, and that arguments still rage about the age of almost every major find.” - Mary Beard 

Is there a piece you consider a “breakthrough” in your career?  

"I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done." - Marie Curie 

What do you think about the art community and market? And how did your perception change over the last year due to the pandemic?  

“I bear my burden proudly for all to see, to conquer prejudice and ignorance and hate with knowledge and sincerity and love. Whenever you are threatened by a hostile presence, you emit a thick cloud of love like an octopus squirts out ink...” - William S. Burroughs  

What are you working on now, and what are your plans for the future? Anything exciting you can tell us about? 

“In such a society as ours the only possible chance for change, for mobility, for political, economic, and moral flow lies in the tactics of guerrilla warfare, in the use of fictions, of language.” - Kathy Acker 

And lastly, what is one piece of advice you would give to an emerging artist? 

“It’s not plagiarism in the digital age – it’s repurposing.” - Kenneth Goldsmith