James Day
(UK)
PAINTING

DETAILS
Oil painting on canvas
W100 cm x H100 cm (W39.37 x H39.37 inches) 
2022
 
DESCRIPTION
The Toolip Art Gallery presents the Portrait "The Old Man"—an oil painting painted in the middle of the pandemic by British artist James Alexander Day.
 
BIOGRAPHY AND STATEMENT
My name is James Day, and I have been an artist since 2001. My art has changed radically throughout that time. Back then, I painted landscapes about my connection to the past and my Irish heritage.
 
And the paintings I did after leaving college in 2001 and for some time after that were about connecting with that heritage. But as time has passed, the art that does has changed and developed and has gone off in many directions. I still love landscapes, landscape painting, and artists like J.M.W Turner and Claude Monet.
 
But over time, I have done other things as an artist. I have a very eclectic taste when it comes to art. I have loved and still love all art forms from centuries ago, going right up to the present day. I have a fascination with all types of art and creativity. What I do as an artist has radically changed since 2001; I have had a great love for art since I was a child in school. And even back then,
 
I loved art in all its forms. I remember seeing Salvador Dali's work in Shcool; his paintings blew me away. I have always loved the work of Surrealist artists. And I have always had a love of surrealism and fantasy within art. I found out that I am on the autistic spectrum, and I think this is why I have always loved marking art ever since I was a young child. I find being around people to be hard at times as a man with autism.
 
Making art is myself in society. And I feel happy when making art as I can go into the world of my making. I moved away from landscape painting in the 2000s to surreal and fantasy art, where I started to do surreal landscapes. And fantasy characters in paintings. I love Japanese art, cartoons, Studio Ghibli, and anime. For me, painting is the main thing that I do, and it's where I have had my most significant success as an artist, with many of my paintings being sold even when I was still in college in the 90s.
 
And I have been selling my paintings for well over 20 years now. I have gotten a lot of commissions over the years. In the past few years, I have gone from doing paintings to 3D work during the dark days of the worldwide pandemic.
 
When I was cut off from the world around me, I started to mark Diorama's models. As a new form of artistic expression, I used this miniature world of the diorama to express my feelings about the world around me.
 
One of these dioramas was a house on an island, and I called this 3D piece No Man is an Island. I used this diorama to say what it feels like to be isolated and cut off from the world around you. And in other dioramas,
 
I made surreal versions of my surreal landscape paintings. One diorama was about the lockdown and how these lockdowns negatively affected people's mental health. It was a house that was different on the inside from the outside appearance.
 
I am still making these dioramas, but my paintings have changed again; I am now doing photo-realistic paintings of everything from still lifes to landscapes and animals. I love to do things I have not done before in art and try out things I have not done before.

Since 2024, James and his artworks have been represented by the Toolip Art Gallery.
 
For your convenience, all our artworks are included in the 13% VAT. FREE SHIPPING WORLDWIDE