Curator and Art Critic, Pavel Alejandro Barrios Sosa on the work of James K-M
First you have to recognize the basic and undeniable. How does reality recognition work? Well, from an automatic process, but deeply conscious of the identification of the knowable parameters that we archive in our brain. Based on these parameters – each one implies a sensory appearance associated with a concept of an object or thing in itself – a process of comparison of what is observed with what is stored in our mind takes place.
The result is the identification of what is observed or the enunciation of a similar identification, if we do not really find an identical paradigm in our knowledge or mental file. Continuing with the dynamics of this process, I dare to identify some visual references in the work of James K-M. Of course, the broader my associative capacities are, the more statements I will be able to make about what I appreciate in this artist’s work.
The first of my appreciations is the influence of the so-called optical art. An art that tries to elaborate and provoke different visual dynamics according to the use of visual structures (geometric shapes and pure colors). There is no interest in this type of art other than the creation of purely retinal effects.
The second of my appreciations is the influence of Piet Mondrian’s Neoplasticism. And I say influence because it must be recognized that James does not copy him, but he is similar in his planimetric visual structures, although he dispenses with the use of structural lines, he is similar in the choice of square and cubic shapes and their sequential use in space. This association is purely visual, so to assert a more conceptual type of confluence it would be necessary to question James K-M himself. Likewise, we should ask him if he recognizes a certain influence from the abstract work of Dan Flavin and his chromatic-musical structures. Daring to assert such an influence on K-M’s work is a risk that only the artist himself could authorize. Although rhythm can be perceived visually in his pictorial and sculptural works, associating it with music is too risky.
Thirdly, we must recognize the influence of pure form and color, the search for basic forms and the basic use of color in planimetric or volumetric structures. And this use is repetitive, obsessive, as if the artist was looking for some pure form of expression, which would bring us closer to the assumptions of Kasimir Malevich’s Suprematism. And I do decide to take this risk because it is based on the appreciation of the same obsessions and visual strategies.
Then we could talk about a certain analogy with the geometric-decorative representations of the Neolithic and Indo-American groups, which the artist himself has recognized and is part of his visual universe and his life history. These decorative structures, apparently so devoid of any conceptual value and which, however, hide a history of simplified astrological and deistic references over the centuries. Then there is deep knowledge and cosmogonic references in most of these Indo-American decorative symbols.
And finally, there is a playful intention of entertainment on the part of the artist who not only takes pleasure in playing with basic shapes and the optical use of colour, but also invites the viewer, especially in the volumetric pieces, to recompose mentally built pyramids, with other colour combinations, with other chromatic structures.
To summarize, I would like to conclude my appreciation exercise with a simple statement: James K-M is an artist obsessed with the simplicity that covers all truth or deep knowledge of the world, and his intention is to play at recomposing all that ancestral knowledge in the most innocent way possible, as a child would do with the structures created by The Creator, and not only is he content to play, but, in some way, James invites the Man to live the experience of his game.