Early texts works created using underwater photography produced as a unique silver gelatin print by the artist
Memories and texts noted down on a typewriter are documented underwater using an 8 by 10 analogue camera to capture a dancing brigade of light. These shards of light take on the control and semblance of charcoal on paper, rolling the texts over an offshore seascape that shifts into a cartographic recording to hold unchanging through time.
Presented here 'as shot' these colour negative film plates show flecks of colour darting through them, each print will be a unique B&W silver gelatin print; this intended intervention in the particular use of medium to remove any trace of colour, and, by making only one unique print, further enforcing the singular uniqueness of the final photograph.
Alexander James
1997
title 'War, politics and money' Plate 0448'
20 x 16 inch unique silver gelatin print
presented in a museum archival box wrapped in Gesso paper
Alexander James
1998
detail of 'War, politics & Money 0442' from 'Offshore Recordings'
20 x 16 inch unique silver gelatin print
presented in a museum archival box wrapped in Gesso paper
Alexander James
2003
title 'There is nothing more dangerous than an honest man'
Plate 04
20 x 16 inch unique silver gelatin print
presented in a museum archival box wrapped in Gesso paper
Alexander James
2003
detail of 'An honest man' 0488 from 'Offshore Recordings'
20 x 16 inch unique silver gelatin print
presented in a museum archival box wrapped in Gesso paper
Alexander James
1996
title 'Nothing bad ever lasts' Plate 0313
20 x 16 inch unique silver gelatin hand print
presented in a museum archival box wrapped in Gesso paper
Alexander James
2009
title 'Fear is a darkroom where dreams set sail in a caustic sea'
Plate 0317
20 x 16 inch unique silver gelatin print
presented in a museum archival box wrapped in Gesso paper
Alexander James
1996 - Ongoing
detail 'Fear is a darkroom where dreams set sail in a caustic sea'
Plate 0317
20 x 16 inch unique silver gelatin print
presented in a museum archival box wrapped in Gesso paper
Alexander James
2001
detail of 'I steal an adventure every time I look in your eyes' 0425 from 'Offshore Recordings'
20 x 16 inch unique silver gelatin print
presented in a museum archival box wrapped in Gesso paper
Alexander James
1997
detail of 'A man need not be an angel to be a saint 0240' from 'Offshore Recordings'
20 x 16 inch unique silver gelatin print
presented in a museum archival box wrapped in Gesso paper